Category Archives: Evolution of Work

Literature that describes the evolution and transition of work systems or addresses possible future work trends.

What Multiplayer Games Have to Do with Leadership Development and the Future of Work

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When not gallivanting around Gielinor slaying monsters, completing quests, or working on skill levels on my own, I’m leading a small group through an activity that involves finding several roaming pixelated penguins disguised in bush, rock, or barrel costumes. It all sounds very silly and lighthearted but, let me tell you, this can turn into a challenging endeavor! Although I didn’t initially seek out leadership, I took up this task as planning the sequence of places to visit and the optimal route through them as well as coordinating sweeps (where we split up to efficiently cover a large area) came naturally to me. The challenge is in communicating directions to people you can’t see face-to-face and, similar to those familiar conflicts that arise when driving around with your significant other and getting lost, the interpersonal frustrations that flare up - What do you mean you don’t know where Piscatoris Fishing Colony is?! You just did a quest there recently FFS!!!

As described in this article, Virtual Worlds, Real Leaders: Online games put the future of business leadership on display (IBM, Seriousity; 2007), practicing the art of navigating your way and interacting with others in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) facilitates building communication and leadership skills necessary for working in fast-paced dispersed, virtual work environments where the people you may be working with come from far-flung places around the world. Moreover, as the article points out, the MMORPG environment often prompts people who would not ordinarily seek out leadership opportunities to step up and give it a try for short “projects.”

Such short-term opportunities that give more people a chance to lead reflect the nature of leadership in dynamic, ever-changing situations that today’s organizational leaders find themselves in. In this scenario it becomes more advantageous to elect one person to take the lead for a special project or circumstance and then have someone else take over leadership for another. So, it can be the case that people will increasingly find themselves taking turns leading and following. Other key points about the nature of leadership in virtual environments made by this article are included below:

Online gaming environments facilitate leadership through:

  1. Project-oriented organization
  2. Multiple real-time sources of information upon which to make decisions
  3. Transparent skills and competencies among co-players
  4. Transparent incentive systems
  5. Multiple and purpose-specific communications mediums

In fast moving distributed environments, leadership can be:

  1. A temporary phenomenon
  2. Task-oriented
  3. Dynamic and constantly changing

Hence, I agree with the article’s concluding point below that this form of play can contribute  to gamers’ professional development.

It’s not a stretch to think resumes that include detailed gaming experience will be landing on the desks of Fortune 500 executives in the very near future. Those hiring managers would do well to look closely at that experience, and not disregard it as a mere hobby. After all, that gamer may just be your next CEO.

Nice isn’t it that the hundreds or even thousands of hours some of us have spent in these MMORPGs hasn’t been all for naught? I have often suggested that I should list my in-game accomplishments on my resume just to show how tenacious I am: Lynn’s MMORPG achievements. Finally, for those who have a similar tenacious interest in how the online gaming experience provides a training ground for functioning in the distributed workforce of the future, here is a long but interesting lecture about it at Stanford University:

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Join us at the next Better Collaboration online Meetup which takes place Wednesday, May 22nd, 2:30-4:00 pm EST (11:30-1:00 pm PST): Innovating the way dispersed teams collaborate! 

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Featured speaker is Paul Brody, CEO and Co-Founder of Sococo. Sococo is an innovative tool for fostering impromptu collaboration without having to physically be at the same place. Everyone can see who is around and, with one click, can immediately start a conversation or meeting (voice, video, chat, multiple screen shares).

These educational video conference series are geared towards organizational leaders who wish to learn more about improving collaboration and productivity through the use of online tools. Visit the Better Collaboration website or register here at on the Better Collaboration meetup page!

Is Solo Creativity Really Dead?

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Reblogged from The Artist's Road:

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Consider yourself lucky you're not my wife. Every morning she is forced to endure a rant from me about something I've read in that day's Washington Post. Sundays provide multiple opportunities for fist-shaking, but one editorial this past Sunday hit a nerve: the topic was creativity.

The headline said it all: "The end of lone-wolf capitalism." For years now digital utopians have first insisted that we all believe in a myth that creativity and innovation comes from solitary thinkers; then they knock down their straw man by pointing to the power of collaboration.

Read more… 935 more words

Everywhere I look, various experts are heralding the benefits of group work over solo, independent work. Insisting on working alone is selfish they say. Collaboration fosters more creativity than solo work they say. It’s one thing to be describing the work style that brings out the best for the bulk of the “bell curve,” however if there’s one valuable lesson to learn from decades of studying psychology it’s that, when it comes to people, it’s impossible to generalize about a great, many things. Still worse is to subject the people who don’t fit to the “tyranny of the majority.”

So here I am working alone, independently on my blog and other creative writing, art, and musical side projects. I’m blissfully happy. Life seems great. Everything seems alright with the world. And yes, any creative inspiration that has struck me may owe its existence to the synergy of ideas I’ve gained in past encounters with people, films I’ve watched, and books I’ve read. However, I am producing my work now alone, on my own and it feels great. So the last thing I wish to witness is a mass movement that pushes one style of working (group work) over another (solo work).

Those of you who know what it’s like to be a “misfit” in one way or another, I think, can appreciate how statements about working “this way” or “that way” is better for everyone are ill-thought out. To maximize productivity and creativity across a whole society, it would be ideal to maximize freedom for everyone to work in the way that suits each person best. If you are most productive and creative while working in a more collaborative manner… great! If someone else is most productive and creative while working alone… great! Different strokes for different folks. The Industrial Age is characterized by standardized, one-size-fits-all work policies. Here’s hoping that the push towards group work with the simultaneous denouncement of solo work goes the way of the Industrial Age as well.

To my relief, I’m not alone in my leaning towards working alone. In this post, Patrick Ross makes a powerful argument about not making this an either-or situation. While celebrating the ways in which today’s digital tools foster collaboration, it’s not necessary or even desirable to denounce solo, independent work. As it turns out, many writers and artists would agree.

Related article By the way, if you are interested in optimizing collaboration, the next Better Collaboration online Meetup, takes place on Wednesday, May 22nd, 2:30-4:00 pm EST (11:30-1:00 pm PST): Innovating the way dispersed teams collaborate!

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Featured speaker in this event will be Paul Brody, CEO and Co-Founder of Sococo. Sococo is an innovative tool for fostering impromptu collaboration without having to physically be at the same place. Everyone can see who is around and, with one click, can immediately start a conversation or meeting (voice, video, chat, multiple screen shares).

These educational video conference series are geared towards organizational leaders wishing to learn more about improving collaboration and productivity through the use of online tools. Visit the Better Collaboration website or register here at on the Better Collaboration meetup page!

Interviewing, Selecting, and the Lying Game

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I know all there is to know about the lying game. I’ve had my share of the lying game!

That was cheesy, I know. Seriously though, from pretending to work, to pretending to like your job, to pretending to be interested in the job you’re interviewing for, appearances matter a lot within our current system. Like they say, appearances can be deceiving. As someone who’s been on both sides of the interviewing and selection process, I’ll share my thoughts on this issue and touch upon technological advances that may change the process of interviewing and candidate selection in the future.

Faking enthusiasm and interest in a job is an issue that spurs healthy debate. On the one hand people have learned that, with the job market being the way it is right now, you can’t be too picky. Many out there would agree that it’s important to “pull out all the stops” to get a job, any job, in order to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head. A friend told me that the “fake it until you make it” strategy sometimes works. He explained that an applicant might start off faking enthusiasm and interest when first interviewing for the job but then develop genuine enthusiasm and interest later down the road. “Alright,” I conceded, “However, what if you have two candidates: one is genuinely interested and the other is only acting interested. Wouldn’t you want a way to tell the the one who is genuine from the pretender?” His response was interesting. He stated that the one faking it is still attractive because people who are willing to bend and shape themselves in whatever manner to earn your approval are more easily molded.

Truth lies

Truth lies (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you’re anything like me however, you tend to resist social pressure to be untrue to yourself. Moreover, your wish to maintain your identity overrides your desire to flex your acting skills in interview situations. This is challenging in the face of loved ones trying to coerce you into saying the prescribed, correct lines in order to land that interview for the job that you don’t really want and live a life of normalcy. Somehow I just can’t bring myself to fake, “I believe in the mission and values of your organization!” with enthusiasm. The pressure to do so and the hoops you must jump in order to make a living often reminds me of this classic Star Trek scene:

My friend has a point. Longtime friends and loved ones as well as certain members of the Unification Church (who tried to recruit me during my college days) would attest to the fact that I’ve been anything but malleable. Despite my general unwillingness to bend and “put on a good show” however, there are times when I’ve wondered if someone who had more of a passion for the job I had taken would’ve been selected if I had not applied. All else being equal (e.g., knowledge, abilities, and skill-set), I can’t help but wish that the candidate who has more passion for the work is selected.

At this time, the process of interviewing and selecting the right person for the job remains largely subjective as Wendell Williams, founder and managing director of Scientific Selection, notes (in The Science of Hiring):

Although many managers who conduct numerous interviews say they are apt judges of character and abilities, “the truth is that many of them are the weak links in the hiring chain because they do not know how to conduct the kind of interviews that reveal a candidate’s suitability for a specific job,” Williams said.

Too many hiring managers rely on gut instincts to determine if a candidate is right for the job, a practice that has no place in effective recruiting and hiring,” added Williams.

There is a push to develop more scientific means of selection however. Advances in technology are promising more objective, scientifically valid selection tools. Synthetic Validity is being developed for this very purpose. Job simulations are another example. Moreover, just think about the possible applications of the following technologies:

    • As mentioned in this previous post, we’ll see the emergence of technologies that can track fluctuating changes in brains and bodies with respect to emotional reactions.
    • Face-reading software being developed promise to outperform people (Face-reading software to judge the mood of the masses)

Technology is a double-edged sword of course. As a strong privacy advocate, the potential for abuse of technologies that can read internal reactions is quite apparent to me. As we march forward into the future, we will have to establish the manner in which they should be used. For example, under what conditions does use of such technologies violate our notions of good discretion and responsibility? These are issues that we need to be discussing today.

P.S. This is for those who are unfamiliar with the song referenced at the beginning of this post.

Also, stay tuned for news about the upcoming Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013 video conference on enhancing collaboration of virtual teams!

These educational video conference series are geared towards organizational leaders wishing to learn more about improving collaboration and productivity through the use of online tools. Visit the Better Collaboration website or the Better Collaboration meetup page for more information!

My Picks for Top, Informative “Future of Work” Videos

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Over the weekend, I went on a YouTube binge trying to identify the most informative videos on the future of work. This actually took quite a bit of time investment but guess I’m just obsessive like that! I selected the following videos on the basis of quality of content as well as diversity of opinions, hoping to cover the positive and negative aspects of work in the near future. These videos were also selected for conciseness as I know that not everyone can (or wants to) watch a bunch of hour-long videos (although there are some great lectures out there!). I’ve listed the videos in no particular order and have, instead, attempted categorization on the basis of what target audience might be most interested. They are all still worth watching regardless of who you are however! Enjoy!

Videos of interest to anyone thinking about larger workplace, economic, real estate, and job market trends

My favorite quote from the panel discussion below: One size misfits all.

Videos of interest to organizational leaders

Wonderful arguments, citing psychological reactions, made against the open office plan in the video below. Plus, the problem with optimizing for collaboration “way too much.” Recommendations on empowering employees for productivity.

Videos of interest to employees

Tom Malone, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of the HBR article “The Age of Hyperspecialization,” explains why breaking jobs into tiny pieces yields better, faster, cheaper work — and greater flexibility for employees.

Drawn from observations and her own working life experiences — many and varied — Dr. Stanford will illustrate, through three ‘takes’- of an 11 year old, a 35 year old, and a 63 year old — what preparing for the continuously unfolding future of work means.

Video of interest to students thinking about their future career

Anders Sorman-Nilsson, founder and creative director of Thinque, discusses trends impacting industry today and how students can gain a competitive edge in the work place of the future.

Thinking about what tools will enhance collaboration of your organization’s virtual team?

There are still some spots available for Better Collaboration’s upcoming videoconference! These events are specifically geared towards organizational leaders and this next one, on April 24th 1:00-2:30PM EST (10:00-11:30AM PST), will feature Matt Boyd, Co-Founder at Sqwiggle. Sqwiggle is an always on online workplace for your remote team to work together throughout the day. Their slogan: Remote Working, Made Awesome.

Register at the Better Collaboration Meetup site and check out services offered through Better Collaboration.

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Virtual Teams and the Challenge of Cross-Cultural Differences

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Cover of "The Handbook of Culture and Psy...

Cover of The Handbook of Culture and Psychology

From David Matsumoto’s The Handbook of Culture and Psychology:

The next two decades promise to be even more exciting for research on culture and emotion. Interesting programs have sprung up all around the world and in all disciplines of psychology. New technologies for mapping culture as a psychological construct on the individual level are being developed, as well as ways to measure precisely moment-to-moment changes in our brains and bodies when we feel or judge emotion. Collectively, these endeavors will tell us more in the future about the relationship between culture and the physiology of emotion, the representation of display and decoding rules, emotion perception, and culture itself in the brain (p. 161)

Having written a couple of posts (here and here) on the difficulties of cross-cultural communication and misunderstanding, the quote above provides hope that advancing technology and emphasis on cross-cultural research may help promote improved cross-cultural understanding in the future. Indeed, at the time that The Handbook of Culture and Psychology was published (in 2001), academics acknowledged that, even though contact and communication via computer-mediated technologies across different cultures around the world would increase dramatically (especially for work-related reasons), we are a step behind as far as cross-cultural communication research in this realm goes. Up through this point in time, cross-cultural researchers had focused on cross-cultural face-to-face communication and had largely neglected cross-cultural communication via technology. Just as we don’t want to assume that our understanding of people from the standpoint of Western psychology applies to everyone around the world, it’s also vital that we don’t assume that communicating via technology is identical to communicating face-to-face.

However, what can organizational leaders and managers do at this point in time to assure that their virtual team members around the world collaborate effectively? As I mentioned in this post, expecting to become an expert on another person by picking up and reading a book about that person’s culture isn’t reasonable. It’s unlikely that a summary of a culture will describe all the components of that given culture. Additionally, people in any specific region will differ from each other culturally due to many other factors – e.g., socioeconomic status, education level, life experiences, gender, age, etc. Comparisons of culture on a large-scale can tell you something about group-level differences, but knowing these averages will not help when dealing with individuals from a given culture as they can fall anywhere along the group distribution representing the whole group’s characteristics.

When cross-cultural miscommunication occurs however, it would be helpful to understand the way in which the other person views the situation. To this end, some steps that organizational leaders and managers can take include employing the services of culturally knowledgeable mediators or arbitrators and using behaviorally-based culture learning programs (Matsumoto, D., p. 427). The latter includes the following programs:

  • Information giving
  • Cultural sensitization
  • Simulations
  • Critical incident techniques
  • Culture assimilators
  • Experiential learning

Finally, in this video, Geert Hofstede compares and contrasts the acquisition of culture within societies and organizations, explains the introduction and impact of people’s native (i.e., acquired within society) culture on relational dynamics within organizations, and much more!

Want to learn about other aspects of innovating and improving collaboration of dispersed teams?

Don’t miss Better Collaboration’s upcoming videoconference! These events are specifically geared towards organizational leaders and this next one, on April 24th 1:00-2:30PM EST (10:00-11:30AM PST), will feature Matt Boyd, Co-Founder at Sqwiggle. Sqwiggle is an always on online workplace for your remote team to work together throughout the day. Their slogan: Remote Working, Made Awesome.

Register at the Better Collaboration Meetup site and check out services offered through Better Collaboration.

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The New Groupthink: A Case Against the Call for Collaboration for the Sake of Creativity

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Introverts like myself heave a huge sigh of relief upon reading Susan Cain’s new book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking. In the chapter titled, “When Collaboration Kills Creativity,” Cain explains the origins of this recent, increased call for in-office collaboration and presents compelling research studies that run counter to the assumptions and reasons behind the move towards the open office plan and the usually, taken for granted requirement for employees to work collaboratively in teams. Yes, I’ve always loathed projects that required teamwork in school and, although I can’t speak for everyone, I’ll say that I’ve always come up with creative ideas on my own while group brainstorming always inhibited idea generation.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts

On the origins of “The New Groupthink,” Cain writes:

Cooperative learning, corporate teamwork, and open office plans emerged at different times and for different reasons. But the mighty force that pulled these trends together was the rise of the World Wide Web, which lent both cool and gravitas to the idea of collaboration (p. 78).

The Internet’s role in promoting face-to-face group work is especially ironic because the early Web was a medium that enabled bands of often introverted individualists — people much like the solitude-craving thought leaders Farrall and Kronborg describe — to come together to subvert and transcend the usual ways of problem-solving (p. 79).

If you had gathered the same people who created Linux, installed them in a giant conference room for a year, and asked them to devise a new operating system, it’s doubtful that anything so revolutionary would have occurred… (p. 80).

Moreover, Cain explains how collaboration and crowd-sourcing produce different results under different conditions (online vs. face-to-face). E-mail, instant messaging, and online chat tools are, by the way, considered passive forms of collaboration.

The one exception to this is online brainstorming. Groups brainstorming electronically, when properly managed, not only do better than individuals, research shows; the larger the group, the better it performs. The same is true of academic research — professors who work together electronically, from different physical locations, tend to produce research that is more influential than those either working alone or collaborating face-to-face… But we’re so impressed by the power of online collaboration that we’ve come to overvalue all group work at the expense of solo thought. We fail to realize that participating in an online working group is a form of solitude all its own. Instead we assume that the success of online collaborations will be replicated in the face-to-face world (p. 88).

Furthermore, she cites explanations given by psychologists for the failure of group brainstorming:

The first is social loafing: in a group, some individuals tend to sit back and let others do the work. The second is production blocking: only one person can talk or produce an idea at once, while the other group members are forced to sit passively. And the third is evaluation apprehension, meaning the fear of looking stupid in front of one’s peers (p. 89).

On the subject of some traits and characteristics of top performers and the conditions under which they make creative contributions, Cain writes:

… top performers overwhelmingly worked for companies that gave their workers the most privacy, personal space, control over their physical environments, and freedom from interruption… [Open-plan workers are] often subject to loud and uncontrollable noise, which raises heart rates; releases cortisol,… and makes people socially distant, quick to anger, aggressive, and slow to help others (p. 84).

Many introverts seem to know these things instinctively, and resist being herded together… [Mike Mika, the former creative director of Backbone Entertainment stated,] “We switched over to cubicles and were worried about it — you’d think in a creative environment that people would hate that. But it turns out they prefer having nooks and crannies they can hide away in and just be away from everybody” (p. 85).

Well, there you go folks! Outlined above are some examples and serious counter-arguments to consider, and there is no better time to consider them than now. At the time of this writing, both Yahoo! and Best Buy have reversed course on their flexible work policy. I don’t know whether these changes are meant to be temporary or permanent, however it is my hope that all those who are weighing the pros and cons of flexible work policies will, in due diligence, consider all the facts. Susan Cain sums it up nicely by stating, “If personal space is vital to creativity, so is freedom from ‘peer pressure’” (p. 86).

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Bay Area tops new ‘mega-commuter’ Census list defining the worst trips to work – San Jose Mercury News

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Bay Area tops new ‘mega-commuter’ Census list defining the worst trips to work – San Jose Mercury News.

via Bay Area tops new ‘mega-commuter’ Census list defining the worst trips to work – San Jose Mercury News.

The so-called “mega commuters” or “super commuters” featured in this story are the final casualties of the dying Industrial Age office.  The casualty is the horrible imbalance of their lives due to spending needless hours each day on the road that could otherwise be spent on health promoting behaviors such as getting exercise and adequate sleep (no, Obamacare can’t solve that) and for quality time with their families.

What’s so painfully ironic is this story is set in the San Francisco Bay Area, home of many Information and Communications Technology (ICT) companies that have effectively obsoleted working in a centralized office Monday through Friday.  Incongruously, some of these companies don’t yet realize the obsolescence they themselves have created, requiring their staffs to adhere to Industrial Age office hours as if if were still 1985.  (See the media firestorm resulting from Yahoo’s decision last week to require its employees to commute to HQ)  That in turn creates one of the worst metro areas in the United States for traffic congestion and long commutes.

Is 100% unemployment realistic, desirable, and statelessly doable?

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Reblogged from In defense of anagorism:

I find it hard to imagine a situation in which all real needs can be satisfied without any work being performed by people. I find it equally hard to believe that we will ever see full employment; understood to mean enough jobs to go around. Automation is real, and it's inconceivable to me that the future needs all of us. Thus, as long as we are living under a market economy, some of us will be expendable.

Read more… 531 more words

Is it conceivable? Thinking of a way to reconstruct a society in which all the work is being performed by technology makes for an interesting thought exercise indeed. However, some thinkers (such as Andrew McAfee in his TED presentation - see my previous post "The Move Towards Self-Employment") do see the possibility of a life where people are freed up to do other things. Can the currently assumed exchange between work and consumption be broken? Can the current unemployment situation be but a painful transition on to a life that is ultimately better? If money no longer mattered, perhaps some people would still be working and striving, but for different rewards (such as popularity or mere thrill of competition) as one of my conversation partners hypothesized. This possibility has optimists exclaiming "100% unemployment now!" However if we are striving towards this type of society, one of the worst risks we take is that our creations turn on us and we live out an event akin to "The Terminator: Rise of the Machines." On the other hand, the way we currently work is already ruining people's health and therefore slowly killing a good number of us so, if things keep going the way they are, the issue of our welfare becomes moot. Check out this interesting blog post, "Is 100% unemployment realistic, desirable, and statelessly doable?"

Surveillance at Work: Issues and Recommendations

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The possibility of employers checking potential hires’ social networking sites to attain a more in-depth look at what candidates might really be like is now common knowledge. Likewise, most people also know that employers are increasingly monitoring their computer activities at work and that this can come in the form of programs that track time spent on work related and non-work related software as well as the types of websites you visit. These have become part of a “new normal.” However, surveillance can be more invasive and extend beyond the workplace itself. It can come in the form of tracking, through GPS, where you drive the company vehicle or employers’ hiring private investigators to verify health or injury claims as the following video shows:

Global Interviews: Vancouver Private Investigator on Employee Surveillance

We are still currently working out the conflict between employees’ right to privacy and employers’ rights to verify the truth of the information you submit for employment or other claims, ensure a fair exchange of labor for compensation per the employment contract, and maintain security of sensitive company related information. In the meantime, job applicants and employees who have information on the Internet that casts an unfavorable light on themselves must engage in some impression management. Here are a few recommendations:

  • Google your own name every now and then to see what kind of information is associated with you
  • Look into setting your social networking profile on “private” and think about what you post
  • If you are on the job, you can keep your non-work and work related activities separate by confining non-work related communications to your own device – yes, you can still watch cat videos!

The following video provides more information on employees’ and employers’ rights along with best practice recommendations for employees:

Computer Privacy in the Workplace
Featuring Attorney Wendi Lazar of Outten and Golden, LLP in New York

Many of us know intuitively that electronic surveillance of our computer and Internet activity at work isn’t going to do wonders for employee satisfaction and engagement. People like to maintain some degree of personal space and privacy. If you just take a moment to think about this, chances are you can probably recall some instance when you felt a visceral discomfort in reaction to being closely scrutinized. It hardly matters where the scrutiny is coming from (i.e., an employer, the government, or some stranger), whether or not you were following the rules or not at the time, or whether or not it is “for your own good.” Some of us want more “space” and privacy than others but I have yet to encounter one person who likes to be monitored all the time.

Electronic surveillance isn’t a foolproof solution when it comes to keeping employees on task either. Mixing of work and non-work related activities occurs anyway with the introduction of today’s sophisticated, portable devices (complete with fun features and games). My own 5-year old iPhone, for instance, gives me access to all the old Nintendo games I had known and loved so many years ago, but I digress. I believe that implementing a results-only-work-environment (ROWE) would be a better way to motivate and keep employees on task. From a behavioral psychology standpoint, what can be better than building a positive association with task completion? Implementing ROWE is easier for some jobs than others of course, however I’m considering knowledge work that is compatible with a ROWE system. A lot of headway can be made in this direction and it can all begin with a small pilot test within the organization.

Finally, here are a couple of articles for those who are interested in understanding what employers may be looking for when they come across your social networking profile:

The End of Organizations as We Know Them

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Nanyangosaurus is the name given to a genus of...

My previous post, The Move Towards Self-Employment, touched upon the decline of organizations. This post will explain and expand upon this phenomenon. Just over a couple of weeks ago, I attended an educational forum on effective teleworking in Walnut Creek, California. James Hall,Vice President of Sales and Business Development at CoreLogic, was the guest presenter. He works virtually and mentioned that meeting face-to-face with employees about once a quarter worked for him. Thus, he extolled the strengths of the virtual organization in stating that organizations that don’t work this way will be left behind.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this message as several telework authors I’ve come across have presaged this as well. For instance, William A. Draves and Julie Coates, authors Nine Shift: Work, Life, and Education in the 21st Century, noted that the sign of a powerful organization will no longer be represented by a tall, beautiful building but by how geographically and/or temporally dispersed it is. (You may read more about Nine Shift here.)

However, when Mr. Hall put the eventual wipe-out of traditional, brick-and-mortar organizations in terms of a “dinosaur-level extinction,” I’ve wondered whether this was meant for dramatic effect ever since. Of course, it’s not difficult to understand why an organization with a decentralized, virtual workforce working at different times (i.e., business can run 24 hours a day with virtual teams working as if in a relay race) would annihilate an organization that limits itself to operating from 9 to 5, all else being equal. Notice that an organization is not even required to have employees at every point around the world to pull this off. Just allow employees to work when they want. Those of us with night-owl tendencies will happily take on the graveyard shift.

In contrast to Mr. Hall’s opinion, I’ve come across a few individuals of the Industrial Age mindset who assert that the outcome of this competition might actually be the reverse. However, this opinion seemed to be hastily expressed out of fear and anxiety that everything can change so profoundly in our lifetimes. In other words, they want to know that their current understanding of how everything is will carry forth into the future so that they can feel safe and secure in their knowledge and understanding of how to succeed in the working world. This very unwillingness to adapt one’s understanding to new circumstances is the issue that will lead to the downfall of organizations that don’t adapt.

So, I agree with the opinion of the many telework authors I’ve come across in speculating that few will adapt. Thus, a great majority of organizations will not relinquish their centralized, commercial real estate space, thereby freeing up capital, and opt for the more competitive, decentralized model. The only chance that brick-and-mortar organizations will see the light is, of course, by facing the difficulties of continuing operations through calamitous events (e.g., major pandemics, natural disasters, terrorist attacks). Moreover, making this transition to working virtually is no easy task for those that are interested in doing so. You may read about all that is involved in the following publications: The Reality of Virtual Work: Is Your Organization Ready? by Aon Consulting and Managing a Remote Workforce: Proven Practices from Successful Leaders by Future of Work.

I can’t guess when this eventual mass culling will take place. However, change is definitely coming and, in this competition, I’d put my money on the organization that works virtually for sure. What are your thoughts on this?