Friday, August 25, 2017

Paul's Update Special 8/25




The top workplace trends for 2017 include:

  1. Companies focus on improving their candidate and employee experiences. 
    Companies have always created marketing experiences for customers, and prospects, in order to delight them, increase loyalty and grow their revenues. Next year, you will see the walls come down between your HR, marketing and customer service departments in order to develop experiences for both candidates and employees. A recent study found that nearly 60% of job seekers have had a poor candidate experience and 72% of them have shared their experience on an online employer review site such as Glassdoor.com. In another study, it was discovered that 83% of HR said that "employee experience" is either important or very important to their organizations success, and in order to enhance the experience, they are investing more in training (56%), improving their work space (51%) and giving more rewards (47%).

  2. The blended workforce is on the rise. 
    In the past five years, the gig economy has become a major trend impacting the global workforce, and has created a new kind of diversity, with full-time permanent employees working side-by-side with freelancers. A study exploring the gig economy found that 93% of companies already identify the blended workforce as they’re seeing freelance workers teaming up with employees to work on projects together. In addition, the top reason why outperforming employers are benefiting from the blended workforce is "more flexible teaming".

  3. Annual performance reviews evolve into more continuous reviews. 
    One of the biggest discussions in HR circles is performance reviews, how to transform them and implement something new that serves both managers and employees. Professionals today desire instant feedback, a behavior they've adopted from the instant gratification they receive on social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Younger generations are especially impatient and are unwilling to wait a whole year to learn about their strengths and areas of improvement. A whole one-forth of employees feel that annual performance reviews don't help improve their performance.

  4. Millennials meet Generation Z in the workplace. 
    2016 marks the first year that gen Z is in the workplace, while a third of millennials are in management roles, some of whom have direct reports. Just like with all generations studied, millennials negatively stereotype gen Zs as being lazy, which will cause some friction. Both generations will continue to put pressures on companies to transform the office, reward employees, embrace flexibility, and align the companies interests with a cause.
  5. Augmented and virtual reality revolutionize recruiting and training. 
    Virtual reality hardware revenue is set to reach over eight billion in the next two years and the amount of money invested will be over four hundred million with 25 million users by that time. We've found that one-fourth of gen Z and millennials want their companies to incorporate virtual reality into the workplace and I predict that this will increase next year as more adopt VR consumer technology. The technology that employees are experiencing outside of work will naturally influence them to desire the same tech at the office. Virtual and augmented reality can help close the experience gap for job seekers and allow employee training to be more engaging, less expensive and free of distractions.

  6. The war for talent heats up as the employer and employee contract continues to evolve. 
    The average tenure for employees, regardless of age is a mere 4.6 years in the United States and based on numerous studies we've conducted, millennials leave after two years. Employers have recognized that there is no lifetime employment contract. With all of this competition for talent, an entire 90% of employers anticipate more competition for talent, especially in emerging markets such as India, North America and Asia. This is why you will see an even greater emphasis on the employee experience in 2017 because companies are being forced to focus more on corporate culture and values than pay in order to retain employees.

  7. Organizations restructure to focus on team over individual performance.
    One of the most fascinating trends, despite the rise of the gig economy, is the emphasis of teamwork regardless of employment situation, industry or politics in a company. While individuals have their own career agenda, companies are now structured with teams because high performing teams will enable them to compete for the future.

  8. Workplace wellness, and well-being, become critical employee benefits for attracting top talent.
    Companies are using wellness programs to lower absenteeism, attract talent, and save on healthcare costs, while employees have become more health conscious in the past several years. 
  9. Companies get creative with their employee benefit packages and perks.
    Fair compensation is most important to all age groups, genders and ethnicities almost unanimously around the world based on several studies that I've conducted over the years. Once you get past pay, then the two most important employee benefits are healthcare coverage and work flexibility, a benefit that wasn't mainstream a decade ago but is today because of the sheer demands of work and our "always on"society. In a recent study, we found that compared to two years ago, work flexibility is the top employee benefit (over healthcare in 2014) globally yet only a third of companies offer it.

  10. Office attire and workplace culture becomes more casual. 
    Several years ago, Virgin Founder Richard Branson was on the cover of Forbes Magazine with a scissors cutting off his tie, calling for the end of business formal attire. With the rise of younger generations, and more employees working remote, there's no doubt that the workplace is increasingly casual. In 2017, you will see a continuation of this trend, with more employees demanding to drop their suits and ties in exchange for jeans and shirts. 




We recently asked members of the HBR community to gauge the extent of “bureaucratic sclerosis” within their organization using our Bureaucracy Mass Index (BMI) tool.  Since then, we’ve received over 7,000 responses from a diverse group of participants. Here are our initial takeaways:
  • The blight of bureaucracy seems inescapable. On our scale, a score of 60 represents a moderate degree of bureaucratic drag, while anything less than 40 indicates a relative absence of bureaucracy.  Of the responses tallied, 64% reported a BMI of more than 70, while less than 1% had a BMI under 40. Not surprisingly, BMI scores were correlated with organizational size.  The average BMI for companies with more than 5,000 employees was 75.

  • Bureaucracy is growing not shrinking. Nearly two-thirds of respondents felt their organization had become more bureaucratic—more centralized, more rule-bound and more conservative—over the past few years. Interestingly, individuals working in customer service, sales, production, logistics and R&D were more likely to feel that bureaucracy was growing than those working in functions like HR, finance, planning, purchasing, and administration.

  • Organizations aren’t becoming flatter.   Despite, all the rhetoric about holacracy and “flatarchies”, the average respondent works in an organization that has more than 6 management layers. In large organizations (more than 5,000 employees) front line employees are buried under 8 or more layers of management.

  • Bureaucracy is a time trap. BMI survey-takers reported spending an average of 28% of their time—more than one day a week—on bureaucratic chores.
  • Bureaucracy is the enemy of speed. Two-thirds of respondents believe that bureaucracy is a significant drag on the pace of decision-making in their organization—a number that rises to nearly 80% in large companies.

  • Bureaucracy produces parochialism.  Survey respondents spend 42% of their time on internal issues — resolving disputes, wrangling resources, sorting out personnel issues, negotiating targets, and other tedious domestic tasks.  Most swamped are executives in large companies who devote nearly half of their time to in-house matters.

  • Bureaucracy undermines empowerment. When asked whether they had “substantial” or “complete” autonomy to (a) set priorities, (b) decide on work methods, and (c) choose their own boss, only 11% answered in the affirmative.
  • Bureaucracy frustrates innovation. New ideas are the lifeblood of any organization, yet only 20% of respondents said that unconventional ideas were greeted with interest or enthusiasm in their organization. Eighty percent said new ideas were likely to encounter indifference, skepticism, or outright resistance.

  • Bureaucracy breeds inertia. In a bureaucracy, change programs are implemented top-down. The problem is, by the time an issue is big enough or urgent enough to capture top management’s scarce attention, the organization is already behind.

  • Bureaucracies are petty and political. In a formal hierarchy, competition for influence and advancement is a zero-sum game—hence the prevalence of backbiting and politicking revealed in our survey.  Nearly 70% of big-company respondents indicate that political behaviors (like blame-shifting, resource hoarding, and turf battles) are “often” observed in their organizations.
Taken as a whole, the BMI survey provides yet more evidence of the toll bureaucracy takes on productivity and resilience.  It is a tax on human accomplishment.  

When we asked survey participants to identify the most significant barriers to down-sizing bureaucracy, 57% of them pointed to the reluctance of senior executives to share power, and 50% cited the widely-held belief that bureaucracy is essential for control. These average responses, though, are misleading. While nearly two-thirds of front-line associates viewed power lust as a barrier to cutting bureaucracy, only a third of CEOs shared that view.

Senior leaders and lower level employees agreed that a lack a lack of information and competence on the front lines is not a barrier to the devolution of authority and responsibility. 

One of these barriers may be the lack of a step-by-step guide for disassembling bureaucracy. So while many may believe that radical empowerment is possible, few know how to make that happen. In most organizations the costs of bureaucracy are largely hidden.  Our accounting systems don’t measure the costs of inertia, insularity, disempowerment, and all the other forms of bureaucratic drag. 

Measuring bureaucratic drag is a first step towards changing all this.  As the size of the bureaucratic tax on human accomplishment becomes more visible, inaction will become more difficult to defend. If, as they claim, leaders are willing to share power, and if, as our respondents believe, employees are capable of exercising it wisely, then there’s no excuse for not getting on with the hard but eminently worthwhile work of dismantling bureaucracy.




To clearly communicate your point and build trusting relationships, here are three things that leaders with impressive communication skills always practice:

  1. They focus on developing a helpful mindset.
    If you aren't ending all your conversations by asking, "How can I be the most help to you moving forward?" then you're missing out on a massive opportunity for connection. Obviously, you have to be authentic with your word and follow through, but offering help demonstrates that you care about people. Kelby Price, director of sales and marketing at IR Optimizer, explains how having a helpful mindset can not only improve communication but also lead to better solutions: "A leader with a helpful mindset checks his or her ego at the door. Instead of focusing on the individual, this leader looks at problems from a solutions-focused perspective. This outlook allows for communicators and leaders to be more open to team collaboration, understanding that working together often results in more effective and efficient results."

  2. They show their presence with consistency.
    This means communicating consistently in two main ways: through your tone and frequency. If you're communicating in a way that's really laid-back and fun one minute and then really buttoned-up and formal the next, you'll throw off people in your audience--and that just reinforces trust barriers between you.
  3. They aren't afraid to be authentic.
    When you're genuine, people can tell. It puts others at ease and makes them more inclined to trust you--which makes communication a lot easier and opportunity come more naturally. 
Your communication skills have the potential to leave a lasting impact on others--make sure that impact is a positive one. Practice these three key skills, and you'll start noticing that expert communication opens endless doors of opportunity.








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Friday, August 18, 2017

Paul's Update Special 8/18




At 2 billion strong, Gen Z is rewriting the rules for how we live, work, and play. 2015 was an extraordinary year; it’s the first year that Gen Z, individuals born in 1995 and beyond began entering the workforce. At two billion strong globally Z is the single largest cohort to ever sweep through civilization. 

Gen Z is going to slam a whole new set of behaviors onto the table; behaviors, built on technologies, such as social media, wearables, implants, augmented reality; behaviors that seem strange and alien to older generations, which ironically built the technologies that have shaped Gen Z’s behavior.
These behaviors are driving six forces that are shaping the future of business; pay attention and you will seize the opportunity of the century.

1. Hyperconnecting
This is the defining force driving Gen Z. Soon every person, machine, and object will be connected–creating a near frictionless engine of innovation. If you can’t use the abundance of data and sensors to intimately understand a customer’s behavior and personalize every interaction something is very wrong with your business.

2. Breaking Generations
By 2100 there will be a global 1:1 ratio of toddlers to 65 year olds. In 1950 that ratio was 10:1. Today it’s 3:1. The result of this shift in population distribution will disrupt virtually every business and social institution, locally and globally. Learning to deal with and leveraging this disruption will be the most critical factor for the success of all businesses in the 21st Century. What this Means to you:

3. The Shift from Affluence to Influence
Your advertising budget is no longer the most critical element in influencing the decisions of Gen Z. Z-ers are powerful influencers and they respond to meaningful conversations and personalized messaging. They have a built-in media channel to billions in the form of the Internet. 

4. Slingshotting
Perhaps the most invisible force, is slingshotting, which is what happens when the vast majority of a potential audience suddenly takes up technology that was only available to a select few. For example, people who had sworn off of PCs are now diving into the deep end of the technology pool by going directly to a tablet and mobile technologies. Within the decade any human being, without regard to geographic or political location and economic status, will be able to connect to the Internet. The result will be the single greatest period of value creation and innovation humanity has yet to experience. 

5. The World as My Classroom
Massively Open Online Classrooms promise to disrupt higher education and create a globally educated workforce. With the next decade we are likely to see more graduates of online education than in the entire history of traditional classroom education. Gen Z expects that if it’s worth learning it’s online, it’s free, and it’s a lifelong process. 

6. Lifehacking
The final force is one of the most powerful shifts in how Gen Z values and views the world. There is a deep sense of purpose that drives Gen Z to game the system in whatever way is best suited to make it serve their view of what is fair, sustainable, and socially conscious. Z despises the protection of intellectual property, believes that innovation should be boundless and instantaneous, and access to capital should be democratized and available to all good ideas. In short they believe in the ultimate efficiency of a free market unfettered by the constraints of the past. 

These six forces are not subtle generational shifts. Instead they challenge some of the most basic beliefs about how we build and operate our businesses. Collectively they fuel a revolution on a scale unlike anything the world has yet experienced. It’s disruptive, powerful, and often frightening, but here is the good news; we are all Z if we choose to be. Generations are no longer about age but about behaviors. Better yet, the leaders of this revolution are already giving us the playbook with all of the rules we need to survive and thrive–you just need to pay attention.




Deloitte has started a major debate in diversity circles by turning its approach upside down. The firm is ending its women’s network and other affinity groups and starting to focus on…men. The central idea: It’ll offer all managers — including the white guys who still dominate leadership — the skills to become more inclusive, then hold them accountable for building more-balanced businesses.

This is a reversal from the strategy large companies have been trying for decades: focusing on empowering “out groups” through dedicated networks, known as affinity groups or ERGs. The overarching objective and promise of these groups never quite materialized: that they would help out-group employees reach the top echelons of leadership. This was never achieved in part because of a flawed underlying assumption that the ERGs’ unspoken purpose was to help out-groups figure out how to assimilate, and assimilation was a prerequisite for promotion.

Over the decades, these efforts too often became a convenient excuse for a lack of progress. Their continued presence today allows in-group men to say they “support women” (or people of color, or LGBTQ employees) and then explain the lack of representation at the top as a lack of will or skill or ambition.

In the end, as Deloitte rightly points out, these networks divide people up into artificial subgroups and isolate them from the networks of power and influence that are such a key part of how leaders identify and promote people.

As the American population — and corporate talent pools — grow ever more diverse, the meaning of “diversity” is shifting. The sum of all the groups considered to be minorities ends up being something entirely new: the majority. In this context, what was a radical idea in 1970 seems especially backward. Why tell the out-groups they have to figure out how to fit in, instead of teaching the in-groups how to reach out?

Today’s diversity challenge isn’t getting more people to adapt to obsolete norms of leadership preferred by Baby Boomer white men. The challenge is to get all managers — and especially current leaders — skilled and ready to lead vastly more-diverse businesses and respond to increasingly diverse customer groups.

Deb DeHaas, Deloitte’s chief inclusion officer, sums it up clearly: “The key to unleashing the power of our diversity is inclusion. To us, inclusion is leadership in action…. It’s everyone’s responsibility, every day and at every level, to create the culture that can make that happen.”




Recent research shows creativity takes a hit when you’re constantly busy. Being able to switch between focus and daydreaming is an important skill that’s reduced by insufferable busyness. As Stanford’s Emma Seppälä writes:
The idea is to balance linear thinking—which requires intense focus—with creative thinking, which is borne out of idleness. Switching between the two modes seems to be the optimal way to do good, inventive work.

In 2011 Americans consumed five times as much information as 25 years prior; outside of work we process roughly 100,000 words every day. This saps us of not only willpower (of which we have a limited store) but creativity as well. 

Engaging creatively requires hitting the reset button, which means carving space in your day for lying around, meditating, or staring off into nothing. This is impossible when every free moment—at work, in line, at a red light—you’re reaching for your phone. Your brain’s attentional system becomes accustomed to constant stimulation; you grow antsy and irritable when you don’t have that input. You’re addicted to busyness. 

How to disconnect in a time when connection is demanded by bosses, peers, and friends? Seppälä makes four suggestions:

1. Make a long walk—without your phone—a part of your daily routine
2. Get out of your comfort zone
3. Make more time for fun and games
4. Alternate between doing focused work and activities that are less intellectually demanding

Research shows that the fear of missing out (FOMO) increases anxiety and takes a toll on your health in the long run. Of all the things to suffer, creative thinking is one of our greatest losses. Regardless of your vocation a flexible mindset open to new ideas and approaches is invaluable. Losing it just to check on the latest tweet or post an irrelevant selfie is an avoidable but sadly sanctioned tragedy.

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Friday, August 11, 2017

Paul's Update Special 8/11



Here’s an idea that’s likely to be the best investment you could ever make: Servant leadership, in which a company and employees join together in providing hands-on service to create a better community and world.

Servant leadership is not without its costs. In our own company, we dedicate a day of service to our community every year for a major project to help children, communities, and groups such as Native Americans, veterans, and single moms. Our project costs of having our employees out of the office is 150 to 200 thousand dollars, not to mention the planning and preparation months before this special day. But the passion this creates and the bond it instills in a company makes it one of the best ROI decisions you could possibly make. Make this your first and highest strategic endeavor.

Coined by Robert K. Greenleaf, founder of the Greenleaf Institute for Servant Leadership, the concept of servant leadership defines a leader who is, very literally, a servant first. “Servant leadership is a philosophy and set of practices that enriches the lives of individuals, builds better organizations, and ultimately creates a more just and caring world,” states the Greenleaf Institute for Servant Leadership.

We do these projects without an expectation of monetary return, but the benefits we receive are profound. Based on our experience, here are three ways we—and by extension, your company, too—can experience the benefits of servant leadership.
  1. Be an example of what a servant leader should be.
    Before you expect your employees to fully embrace servant leadership, you must demonstrate the concept within your own day-to-day office management.
  2. Build a team of servant leaders.
    By creating an office culture of service, you will begin building a strong team of servant leaders. Nothing screams camaraderie like uniting a diverse group of people to work toward a common goal. Encourage each employee to embrace a culture of service throughout their workday.
  3. Seek opportunities to serve.
    Once you have established yourself as a servant leader (and even striving to become one) and have encouraged your team to adopt the tenets of the movement, it’s time to get out of the office and serve your community. With so many opportunities to serve in every community throughout the nation, establishing an annual day of service can easily become a fun, company bonding tradition. 
If my advice and our experience compelled even one more company to adopt a servant leadership culture, imagine the impact on hundreds or thousands of others each of these decisions would have. I challenge you to join us. And please let me know about your experience as you realize your own ROI.




Senior executives need to understand the tactical as well as strategic opportunities, redesign their organizations, and commit to helping shape the debate about the future of work.

Senior executives have two critical priorities in this world. First is to gain an appreciation for what automation can do in the workplace. While cost reduction, mainly through the elimination of labor, attracts most of the headlines and generates considerable angst, our research shows that automation can deliver significant value that is unassociated with labor substitution.

As leaders consider this wide range of possibilities, they have a second priority, which is to develop an action plan. That plan should include a view of both tactical and strategic opportunities for their companies, a blueprint for building an organization in which people work much more closely with machines, and a commitment to helping shape the important, ongoing debate about automation and the future of work.

To gauge the business-performance benefits that automation could deliver beyond labor-cost savings, we asked experts to consider how it could transform working practices in a range of settings—a hospital emergency department, aircraft maintenance, an oil and gas operation, a grocery store, and a mortgage brokerage. The results, though hypothetical, are striking. Measured as a percentage of operating costs, the changes deliver benefits ranging from 15 percent in a hospital emergency department, to 25 percent for aircraft maintenance, and over 90 percent for mortgage origination.

Automation is enabling companies to make the following far-reaching set of moves:
  • Get closer to customers. Affectiva, a Boston-based company, uses advanced facial analysis to monitor emotional responses to advertisements and other digital-media content, via a webcam. Citibank works with Persado, a start-up that uses AI to suggest the best language for triggering a response from email campaigns. The results are a purported 70 percent increase in open rates and a 114 percent increase in click-through rates. And Kraft used an AI-enabled big data platform to reinvent its Philadelphia Cream Cheese brand by better understanding the preferences of different consumer segments.
  • Improve industrial operations. GE uses machine-learning predictive-maintenance tools to halve the cost of operations and maintenance in certain mining activities and so extend the life of its existing capital. Rio Tinto has deployed automated haul trucks and drilling machines at its mines in Pilbara, Australia, where it says it has seen a 10 to 20 percent increase in utilization in addition to lower energy consumption and better employee safety.
  • Optimize knowledge work. It’s becoming more common for a software robot to receive a user ID, just like a person, and then to perform rules-based tasks such as accessing email, performing calculations, creating documents and reports, and checking files. Besides scalability and higher throughput and accuracy, the results include built-in documentation of transactions for audit, compliance, and root-cause analyses. Meanwhile, numerous financial institutions and other companies deploy robotic process automation to collect and process data.
  • Harness the power of nature. Land O’Lakes’ WinField United compiles data on US crops to help farmers make key decisions throughout the year, including which seeds to purchase, soil and nutrient requirements, and yield potential. Meanwhile, the Coca-Cola Company’s Black Book model uses algorithms to predict weather patterns and expected crop yields to inform procurement plans for their Simply Orange juice brand, so that no matter what the quality and quantity of the crops, they can be blended to replicate the desired taste. The model also enables the company to overhaul its plans within minutes if weather conditions threaten to damage crops.
  • Increase scale and speed. The potential for AI-enabled automation to create scale, boost throughput, and eliminate errors creates a range of opportunities for discovery in R&D. For example, GlaxoSmithKline’s machine-learning-enabled model-selection process helps the company analyze many times more models in a matter of weeks as it could in several months using traditional processes. In the automotive industry, Nissan has cut in half the time it takes to move from final product design to production, thanks to digital and automation. And BMW has reduced machine downtime significantly in some of its plants through AI-enabled condition-based maintenance, effectively generating fresh economies of scale with minimal investment.
This dizzying array of possibilities makes it critical for today’s CEO to develop an automation action plan. A good one will include the three following components.
  1. A tactical and strategic view of the opportunities
  2. A plan for integrating automation into the workplace
  3. A commitment to participating in a broader dialog on the future of work
For all the positive effects, many questions about the impact of automation on society remain unanswered, particularly regarding employment and incomes. We do know that business leaders will be at the forefront of what is afoot as they move to embrace automation. They will be drafting the blueprints of the automated workplace, the first to understand which new skill sets will be needed, which old workplace orthodoxies will be obsolete, and how machines and humans will work together. It falls to them, therefore, to take what they have learned beyond their corporate walls and engage in a broader dialogue to help shape the future. Executives’ vantage point gives them an important voice in the future-of-work debate that needs to be heard if the value of automation is to be captured at the same time as its challenges are addressed.




The jobs market is well into the 21st century. So why isn’t our education system? Today’s jobs are vastly different than they were a generation ago. All of us, from Gen Zers to Boomers, are facing a working world that is more changeable and unpredictable than ever. The days of working for 40 years at one job and retiring with a good pension are gone. Now the average time in a single job is 4.2 years, according to the US. Bureau of Labor Statistics. What’s more, 35% of the skills that workers need — regardless of industry — will have changed by 2020.

That rapid pace of change in jobs and skills means there’s a growing demand to update skills as well. According to a new report on workforce re-skilling by the World Economic Forum, one in four adults reported a mismatch between the skills they have and the skills they need for their current job.

In the 20th century, work was dominated by factory jobs. The education system that was built in the previous century was, with some modifications, still suited to training good factory workers and their managers. Management focused on a series of tools to optimize this kind of work: operational efficiency, something called Taylorism, and eventually some management philosophies called Six Sigma. Management was mostly done face to face, while health insurance, a social safety net, and other benefits were bundled into inflexible labour contracts. Today, in the 21st century, we’re seeing the rise of new work models such as freelancing and remote work. In the most advanced companies, teams are learning to be more agile, to work with distributed and remote teams, and to scale up and down to adapt to ever-changing conditions. This is the future of work.

Yet education hasn’t kept pace. We still send our children through a fixed set of primary and secondary education steps, only now a college degree has been added on as a virtual prerequisite for the best jobs. The model doesn’t actually prepare anyone well for a flexible world, in which skills are typically outdated by the time you finish a four-year degree.

Given this situation, people in the workforce should proactively steer their own ongoing skills development. In other words, recognize that you need ongoing training, and realize that you hold the responsibility for your own education. 

The first step is to ask yourself: Are my skills still in demand? What’s the outlook for these skills? And what skills could I work on today that would increase my income potential in the coming years?

Don’t feel like you have to retrain yourself completely, all at once. First of all, as pointed out by the New York Times this week, many of the skills needed to do fading jobs are applicable to growing jobs. For skills you do need to acquire, consider step changes. In computer science, we are trained to break down large problems into smaller chunks that can be more easily solved, one at a time. You’re not going to turn yourself from a coal miner into a data miner overnight. But you can acquire basic skills leading in the direction you want to go.

As your career progresses, make decisions about which work to take based on how much you will learn. Prioritize jobs where you will learn valuable new skills.

Companies also need to look beyond the “not my problem” mentality when it comes to skills acquisition. If nobody takes responsibility for training, simply assuming that some other party (another company, universities, the government) will take care of it, then we have a classic tragedy of the commons. Instead, we all need to contribute to investing in workers’ skills.

To facilitate this kind of cooperation, there is a big role for public-private partnerships, such as internship and apprenticeship programmes, and vocational training that prepares young people for jobs that don’t necessarily require a college degree, but for which industries have specific skills needs.

Meanwhile, for individuals, don’t wait. Take charge of your own future now, and start working on acquiring the skills you will need to have five years from now. 


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Friday, August 4, 2017

Paul's Update Special 8/4




by Bill Gates 
Innovation is the reason our lives have improved over the last century. The most successful economies are driven by innovative industries that evolve to meet the needs of a changing world.

Innovation starts with government support for the research labs and universities working on new insights that entrepreneurs can turn into companies that change the world. The public sector’s investments unlock the private sector’s ingenuity.   

When we innovate, we create millions of jobs, we build the companies that lead the world, we are healthier, and we make our lives more productive. And these benefits transcend borders, powering improvements in lives around the world. Our global culture of innovation has been most successful at those moments when science, technology, and great leadership come together to create miracles that improve modern life. I believe we are in one of those moments.

In the face of fear, President Kennedy successfully summoned our country to harness American ingenuity and advance human progress. It’s important to remember what made the moonshot the moonshot—that is, what transforms political rhetoric into game-changing breakthroughs. A moonshot challenge requires a clear, measurable objective that captures the imagination of the nation and fundamentally changes how we view what’s possible. And it requires marshaling the resources and intellect of both the public and private sectors. When we do that, we chart a course for a future that is safer, healthier, and stronger.

There are four objectives I think we should prioritize:
  1. Provide everyone on earth with affordable energy without contributing to climate change
  2. Develop a vaccine for HIV and a cure for neurodegenerative diseases
  3. Protect the world from future health epidemics
  4. Give every student and teacher new tools so all students get a world-class education
I hope our leaders seize these world-changing opportunities by investing in great research institutions, which translate into big opportunities for innovators. When these ideas help shape a future that is healthier, more productive, and more powerful, it will be because world leaders stepped up to do the urgent and the important at the same time.




Last summer, Adobe researchers surveyed over 2,000 office employees and nine thought leaders on the evolving definition of work. Through this exercise, researches uncovered several interesting insights about the future of work, including the most effective “carrots” used to motivate employees. Jeff Vijungco, vice president of global talent at Adobe says to help employees find fulfillment, “employers need to pay attention to productivity more than perks,” 

Workspaces that encourage subconscious thought, smart coffee machines and conference rooms that remember what you like, virtual assistants that delight, flexible attendance policies, and performance-based rewards were at the top of the list, according to the study. Moving forward, here are five things workers increasingly expect:

Flexible “third places.”
Sociologist Ray Oldenburg argues that there are three types of work spaces. “Work” and “home,” where much of our professional and personal work gets done. But also “third spaces,” which Oldenburg explains as commons areas such as parks and watering holes where our subconscious can produce some of our most inspired ideas and professional contributions. Organizations are redesigning internal workspaces in favor of communal design, more gathering places, and even co-working offices to maximize the output and creativity of employees.

Work-life advocacy.
As people and companies have begun to spread their time between work, home, and third spaces, the boundaries between work and social have been blurred, making it difficult for workers to balance their lives. Winning employers will ultimately respect, if not limit, the amount of time they “invade” workers’ personal and downtime, knowing that they’ll get better output from less stressed employees. But they’ll also support any employees who thrive on blending everything together, the study found.

Culturally inspired technology.
Although fancy perks can certainly work to attract new recruits, most respondents surveyed by Adobe said that “in the trenches” technology had a greater impact towards retaining and fulfiling them than free meals. Simple things like push button desktop sharing and signature approvals are commonly overlooked, but a welcome perk to delight workers.

Better vision.
Workers value both the space and the tools of the trade. But is that enough? There are hopes for a software dashboard that ties together and automates the things we do separately. Emails, calendar invites, calls, documents, and chats – it takes a lot to schedule a single meeting. Bringing these disparate systems into an integrated dashboard can change that.

Virtual assistants.
We know the value of working harder, but it’s time we start working smarter. A staggering percentage of those surveyed expect more than half of all menial work be automated by machines within 20 years. 

(Watch the Future of Work Think Tanks that took place in San Francisco and San Jose. Read the full report.)



Faced with organizational challenges, more and more companies are hiring an executive to manage their digital transformation. Our 2016 study of chief digital officers (CDOs), which analyzed the presence of such leaders among the world’s 2,500 largest public companies, revealed that 19 percent of these companies have now designated an executive to lead their digital agenda. This number is up from just 6 percent of companies in our 2015 study.

When it comes to implementing a digital strategy, the new class of CDOs often encounter several major obstacles upon assuming their role: ad hoc digital initiatives spread throughout a large organization, lacking central oversight; a traditional culture that resists change; a gap in the talent required; and legacy systems and structures that threaten to derail their ambitions. 

As more companies reach digital maturity, they need CDOs who can navigate the intricacies of both legacy IT architectures and new digital applications. Getting there requires an executive with a strong background in technology as well as experience in addressing the often fraught political and governance issues involved in approving major technology investments and implementing the new systems.
  • Unify the Digital Agenda
    When a new digital leader assumes the role, there may be pockets of digital activity spread throughout the organization. This loose arrangement may work during the early stages of digital transformation, when experimentation is encouraged. But as the company begins to examine digital initiatives in light of a larger strategic goal, a lack of unity can quickly become problematic. Digital leaders need to be able to bring together all the people and business units working on digital initiatives. The concept of unity across the digital agenda is universal: The digital leader needs to be able to set strategy but also ensure buy-in across the organization.

  • Bridge the Talent Gap
    The digital talent gap is widely recognized as a critical challenge for companies seeking transformation. PwC’s most recent Digital IQ study found that the lack of properly skilled teams was considered the number one hurdle to achieving expected results from digital technology investments; 61 percent of respondents identified it as an existing or emerging barrier. Bridging the talent gap will require companies to identify the types of skills they need and those they lack, and to create a talent strategy that will ensure that their people can put the digital agenda into practice. This will include some combination of training and hiring, as well as bringing the requisite skills in-house through acquisition. Leaders will also need to be aware of cultural inclinations to keep things the way they’ve always been — a mind-set that can slow adoption of new digital initiatives.
  • Confront Legacy Structures
    The very concept of digital transformation recognizes that a company is starting from an insufficiently strong position. And it has the legacy back-office systems and overall organizational structure to show for it. These holdovers can’t always simply be replaced; digital leaders need to know how to work within these constraints as they move to bring the organization forward. Every digital leader of a large organization will be forced to balance new digital initiatives with the legacy IT system the company has in place. In some cases, separating new from old will work best; in others, process changes can help the two coordinate more seamlessly. How CDOs approach this challenge will depend on a number of factors, key among them the CDO’s place within the hierarchy, and the organization’s culture.
  • Find the Right Digital Leader
    When hiring a digital leader, companies must consider not just the individual’s background and expertise, but also his or her position within the organization and the governance mechanisms from which he or she will derive the responsibility and authority needed to carry out the mission. 
The challenges of digital transformation are not insignificant, but neither is the promise. Although there’s no map for a digital journey that every company can follow, understanding where you are and where you want to go can help you identify the right person to guide you.





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