Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

How to Think Like a Futurist

Being a futurist means paying attention to new patterns or trends that are slowly percolating up through the market and/or society that have the potential to catch on in a major way. It's about coming up with possible scenarios for the future given these developments.For me, the ideal timeframe for futurist thinking is 5-10 years, because although no one can successfully predict the future, in this window you are more likely to be able to clearly see where things are going according to current operating models. Now, in 2019, I think anything beyond 10-15 years is reasonably futile because we bump up against the technological singularity (the time when machine intelligence becomes so sophisticated that it causes currently unfathomable changes to human existence).  

The simplest way to imagine and prepare for the future is to devise intelligent strategies that will serve your company well. You can do this by reading a ton and consulting experts in your field about what they're seeing. Futurists use tools that systematize these recommendations including scenario planning, environmental scanning, Delphi surveying, and individual software programs like Fibres, Futures Platform, and Athena.

Through your research, you will probably determine that financial markets and corporate structures are likely to change dramatically in the next few years. Blockchain will democratize, streamline, and improve the efficiency of ownership. Other potential developments in the financial sector include the increased use of algorithms to boost trading effectiveness, and the inclusion of machines and machine learning in individual and corporate financial planning.

For the rest of this piece, please see the Strategy Business site.

Announcing Workforce 2030: A New Podcast About Our Most Critical Workplace Disruptions

Today marks a very special occasion. Alongside my partner of 10 years, SilkRoad Technology, a global leader in strategic onboarding for workforce transformation, I am releasing a new podcast: Workforce 2030. The show features discussions with leading talent management experts, business leaders and industry disrupters on topics about the future of work and how the workforce will transform to meet the needs of 2030 and beyond.

In my tenure as a workforce futurist, I’ve spent a great deal of time on the microphone with fabulous hosts, and now the tables have been turned! The inaugural episode of Workforce 2030 features Robert Dvorak, CEO and President of SilkRoad. Bob was incredibly fun to talk to because he’s been working in the technology field for 30 years and as you can imagine, has witnessed an incredible amount of growth and change.

In our lively, 30-minute conversation, Bob and I addressed what makes a successful brand a successful employer, why establishing strong employee relationships must be a combination of high tech and high touch approaches, why there’s one human managerial skill that’s essential for effective onboarding, and how tech-based systems facilitate assimilation and prevent quit quits. You’ll also hear why Bob and I are against the word “retention” and why it’s now everyone’s job to be in continuous learning mode.

Whether you’re leading an organization or a team, whether you seek the secret sauce for your own successful career in the mid-21^st century workforce, or whether you read Humanity Works and are looking for a bit more guidance, this is the show for you. Our next several guests include Jennifer Fondrevay, Chief Humanity Officer, Day1 Ready™ M&A consultancy, Grant Zallis, CEO, Founder IAR Consulting, and Ravin Jesuthasan, Managing Director, Willis Towers Watson. If you have a question you’d like me to ask these knowledgeable experts, please send it along!

Tune in to the first episode or access the whole series.

Supply Chains of the Future: What You Need to Know

There's a significant amount of change taking place in business today, and it requires owners to avoid disruption to their supply chain strategy.

Supply chain management plans will need to take into account automation and tech innovation, new geographies and regional sourcing, increased regulation and climate change.

Automation and Tech Innovation

Extensive job automation can affect your supply chain strategy for the better because it allows organizations to reap the unique strengths of both humans and machines.

"Teaming together human creativity, abstract thinking and adaptive response together with machine precision gets you the best of both worlds, leaving machines in charge of what they do best—easy, repeatable tasks—and freeing humans to be the best they can be," says Dr. Gabriele Rizzo, a futurist adviser for private and public international defense organizations.

But businesses will need to work with labor unions and governments to transition workers into new roles and help them to re- and upskill, and to enforce the appropriate labor laws involving safety, wages and hours. They may also want to consider developing a means to collect worker feedback and adjust operations, so they meet employee needs throughout the march toward automation.

According to Rizzo, implementing automation and other emerging technologies are of utmost importance in building and maintaining an edge in supply chain operations.

"These technologies enable fine-grained gathering of operational data, advanced analysis of processes and impacts and faster decision making," she says.

A 2017 Gartner report predicted that by 2021, virtual customer assistants (VCAs) and chatbots will handle 20 percent of all customer service interactions. Although technology innovations such as VCAs and autonomous mobile robots are getting smarter, human workers are still needed to integrate and oversee their participation—and this often requires a highly specialized, but not always readily available, skillset.

If your supply chain strategy already incorporates data analytics, you're off to a great start. But even so, it's becoming even more important for owners to zero in on the information that's most useful and relevant to them.

Technology-based supplier audits are valuable, as are digital platforms and dashboards that assess the effectiveness of operations and worker sentiment in real time.

To fully leverage Big Data's potential, owners must determine the data science skills required for their operations, and work to source these either internally or externally.

For more where this came from, head over to the American Express Business site.

How Digital Automation Can Help Make Your Life Easier

While many fear digital automation, more software arrives every day that saves business owners a great deal of money year by lowering costs and increasing productivity and efficiency.

Let's look at a few business-related areas in which digital automation can help make your life easier.

Recruitment

Need to hire staff? Predictive analytics is transforming recruitment.

Predictive analytics is deriving business insights from data to uncover patterns and illustrate potential outcomes, and it can tell you how well your efforts are resonating with your desired candidates.

A variety of platforms, including LinkedIn, leverage data mining and digital automation to show the number of candidates in a specialty and/or geographic area based on the number of job listings in each city.

Unconscious bias is a huge problem in recruiting that keeps business owners up at night. If often keeps us from seeing recruits' true abilities and negatively affects hiring for diversity.

Consider exploring software that use “augmented writing" to allow owners to phrase job descriptions with neutral language, and, using digital automation, removes names from resumes so evaluators don't make assumptions about gender, race or ethnicity.

Paperwork

Most business owners are still mired in paperwork. And when you rely on paperwork, you risk misplacing important documents.

In the era of digital automation, you can leverage applications to simplify note-taking and document storage. There are digital note-taking tools that can help save your ideas, snippets you hear and things you see throughout the day as clipped notes. Some can also scan your paperwork papers directly to the cloud and/or your mobile device and computer of choice. If you're worried about security, some even has encryption features for sensitive documents.

As for all those business cards you constantly have in your briefcase or jacket pocket, try address book management app. These can help manage your address book so you're alerted when people change jobs or roles.

For the rest of the piece, check out the American Express Business site.

Business Innovations of the Future

As a futurist, I often get asked to predict the business trends that organizations can afford to ignore, because, while they generate a lot of buzz, they are also likely to fizzle out. On the other hand, we must also pay attention to business innovations that are gathering such rapid strength that adoption is now essential. Let's look at a few.

Blockchain

A blockchain is a data structure that builds a digital ledger of transactions and shares it among a distributed network of computers. Using cryptography, each participant interacts with the ledger in a secure way without the need for a central authority. Bitcoin was the first app built using the platform in 2008, with a premise of sending digital payments between any two parties without the help of a financial institution. Bitcoin has now been joined by hundreds of other cryptocurrencies, and the model has moved out of financial services: organizations, employees, and customers are using it for all types of transactions.

Deep Learning

Deep learning (programming machines to mimic the actions of the human brain), is driving a whole new set of business innovations. It's the process of training computers to recognize patterns in data and then classify and categorize them as a human brain could. Together with complex algorithms, deep learning is already helping machines to participate in defining project scope, analyzing risks, developing budgets and allocating resources. It's catching on because it has massive implications. 

For the rest, have a look at the American Express Business site.

The Real Story Behind Stretch Assignments

Stretch opportunities are all the rage in the workplace. But as popular as they are, it’s unclear why some people decide to accept a stretch assignment or role – and others step aside. It’s also unclear why women haven’t benefited from stretches as much as men.

Selena Rezvani is Be Leaderly’s VP of consulting and research and a recognized speaker on women and leadership. She recently led Be Leaderly’s original research on how both genders decide if they are ready for a stretch, and how they make that decision. The report also explores how employers can create a workplace that supports employees who step out of their comfort zones. Based on a survey of 1,549 U.S.- based professionals, the research uncovered the following:

• Men (48%) and women (52%) are equally interested in ultimately advancing into senior vice president or C-suite roles.
• However, the largest portion of women (45%) don’t feel their employers make it easy to gauge if they are ready for a promotion, while the largest portion of men (40%) think their employers help them know whether they are prepared to advance.
• Women are less engaged in and passionate (67%) about their jobs than men (77%), another possible explanation for why fewer women take on stretch opportunities. A strong correlation exists between employees who feel engaged and passionate about their work and those who perceive that their employer makes it easy to assess their readiness to advance.
• In order to apply for a job, both women and men feel that they need to meet, on average, 75% of the qualifications for the role – a surprising difference from accepted thinking about gender attitudes toward the qualifications people feel they need to try for a new position.
• Women may hold back from taking stretches because when assessing how ready they are for a new job, they are less likely than men to overestimate or “round up” their skills, and more likely to underestimate or “round down” what they know or can do. (73% of women disagree that they round up their skills while 60% of men disagree).
• For both men and women, the top criteria for deciding whether to take a stretch assignment are having the influence to create a positive outcome (40% women/43% men), and getting an assignment that lines up with their career goals (33% women/33% men). Both genders say office politics is the biggest practical challenge to taking a stretch assignment (38% women/33% men), with lack of time a close second (34% women, 31% men).
• Money matters. Men are 3.5 times more likely than women to cite pay as an important factor in evaluating the appeal of a new assignment, job or level.

So what do we make of this? Well, if the workplace is being disrupted by sweeping, large-scale trends, employees must have the opportunity to continually redefine and hone their skills. One way employers can offer that is through stretch assignments that provide intrapreneurial short-term “gig economy” type work with minimal risk and disruption, all within the organization’s dominion. Employees, especially millennials, want to “job-craft” their roles. Offering an internal gig economy – or stretch marketplace – delivers big.

Best Practices for Engaging Training Webinars

In the last decade, webinars have become a popular vehicle for delivering training. It makes sense. Scores of software options make it possible to simultaneously showcase audio, video, slides, and other visuals to participants around the globe. Organizations don’t have to pay to send their people to one place, and those who can’t attend live have the option of viewing the material at their convenience.

In my career as a human resources and workforce consultant, I’ve conducted around 100 webinars. I enjoy doing them, but over the years I’ve learned that the skills and techniques necessary to deliver an effective in-person course are not the same as those required for an engaging webinar. Here are considerations to keep in mind as you dip your toes into webinar planning and execution.

Interactivity is Even More Important

In an in-person class, participants at least feel somewhat obligated to pay attention, or at least refrain from doing three other tasks at once. There are no such constraints with a webinar, however. Participants can do whatever they want, and the instructor is none the wiser. For this reason, it’s essential that you hold their interest by stopping every few minutes to ask a question, do a poll, or request a chat response. If you tell your participants at the beginning that you’re going to do this, you have an even better chance at keeping everyone on board throughout your remarks.

Beware the Super-Dense Presentation

Just as in an in-person course, less is often more. Not only are wordy slides harder to read on a computer screen (or god forbid a phone), but they will also tempt an instructor to read from them directly. You also run the risk of overwhelming your audience with too much information that they aren’t free to immediately ask questions about, and this may prompt them to zone out. Instead of trying to communicate everything you’ve got on a topic, select three main points, explain them succinctly, and use colorful case studies, statistics, and anecdotes to support them.

Keep Up With New Feature Releases

If you’re been using the same webinar software for a while, it’s easy to get complacent. You think you know the program like the back of your hand, and you don’t think to learn about fresh offerings that can further enhance your presentations. As an example, one program I use is now able to analyze audience chat and questions in real time to determine the topics that are of most significant interest, and/or the aspects of my remarks with which people are struggling or need clarification. This feature helps me enormously in zeroing in on an individual audience’s specific needs, but I never would have known about it if I didn’t regularly communicate with my vendor.

Train the Trainer

In-person corporate trainers often have education or work experience in instructional design and delivery, and many rehearse extensively prior to getting in front of a new audience. For some reason, though, webinar instructions are not always held to the same standards. Being across an Internet connection instead of a room does not remove your responsibility to be smooth and prepared (rather than awkward and stammery). If you are planning your first webinar, consider a trial run with colleagues or friends and collect feedback on strengths and areas for improvement.

Test and Backup Your Tech

In an ideal world, software and wireless connections would be foolproof. However, in delivering lots of webinars over the years, I’ve learned the hard way that this is not the case. Obviously, you cannot conduct a webinar if you are unable to log into the hosting system, so make sure you’ve tested your software in the exact physical location and using the exact hardware and connections that you will employ on the day of the live webinar. If something doesn’t work properly at go time, you may not have time to fix it, so have a backup plan for gaining quick access to your audience. For example, even if a webinar is supposed to run over Wi-Fi, I always make sure I have an available phone line just in case.

Webinars can be an efficient and cost-effective way of conveying experience and transferring knowledge, but don’t take their ease-of-use for granted. Adhere to these best practices and you’ll realize the full benefits of this learning platform.

6 Essential Qualities of Corporate Trainers

As a human resources consultant, I’ve observed many approaches to corporate training, and most focus on content. Decisions involve what should be taught, and in what format. While delivery is equally important, sometimes it’s overlooked. I’m familiar with situations in which someone totally unfamiliar with the subject matter is pegged to teach an in-person course, and others where someone with no public speaking experience at all is expected to rally a group for a full day or more!

You can make the most of your corporate training initiatives by ensuring that the person who delivers your materials is as good as the materials themselves. Here are a few recommendations to that effect. Strong corporate trainers:

Can Appropriately Customize Material

Course materials that may have been developed months or even years ago for a different audience in a different location may not be an appropriate fit for the audience or the trainer herself. Not only do good trainers understand instructional design, but they are able to rework material in a way that targets a specific group and accomplishes a specific business objective.

Can Bring the Content to Life

Edutainment refers to a style in which course participants are entertained while learning. The best corporate trainers have an engaging style that prompts people to listen, pay attention, and apply learnings. They use substantial interactivity, including videos, quizzes, and exercises – to encourage active participation. They walk around the room, write on boards, and converse with the audience in a friendly and enthusiastic tone.

Possesses Relevant Life and Business Experience

In my experience, it’s difficult for trainers to connect with an audience when they have no firsthand knowledge of participant challenges. For example, as a trainer on workforce issues, I rely frequently on anecdotes and lessons learned from my 10 years in the corporate world. Without these, I don’t know that I would have the necessary credibility to be effective. After all, what can I possibly have experienced about the challenges of working in an office when I basically sit in my house all day?

Is Prepared But Flexible

Good trainers come in knowing the material inside out. While they may make use of a Facilitator Guide, they don’t use it as a crutch. Rather, they can answer most questions about the course material without “looking them up” and are generally considered experts on the topic at hand. At the same time, these trainers can read the audience and understand when material is not resonating, and adjust their approach on the fly for better results.

Can Facilitate Change

The best corporate trainers inspire participants to consider new angles and try different ways of doing things. They inspire a vision and future state in which the participants’ jobs are more successful and rewarding because of the training. They understand that most humans naturally resist change, so they anticipate objections, and school participants in managing obstacles and staying on the right path.

Promotes Blended and Continuous Learning

Along those same lines, good corporate trainers know that learning – and particularly the application of learning – must continue after participants have left the training room. They provide access to supplementary eLearning and self-study vehicles that reinforce lessons, and periodically reconnect with participants to assess how training is being used in role.

Can Evaluate Success Properly

Finally, good trainers don’t simply hand out smile sheets and call it a day, because they know that just because participants say they liked a course doesn’t mean they actually learned anything. Rather, collaborating with business stakeholders, they set concrete metrics (for example, increased sales or quality ratings among participants) that prove training effectiveness and assure learning goals are achieved and sustained over time.

Corporate training has a lot of moving parts, but it’s important to select an individual with the right skills and experience to best steer the operation and maximize your investment.

Designing the Right Physical Workspaces

In my work as a human resources and leadership consultant, I’ve observed that many organizations have dedicated spaces where employees come together to receive training. Most of the time, these locations are basic conference rooms, which led me to wonder: what if companies could build facilities uniquely equipped to meet the needs of the human learner?

Seeking to find out what such spaces might look like and what best practices organizations would be smart to integrate, I spoke with Jonathan Webb, VP of workplace strategy for KI, a designer of 21^st century interior furnishings.

Alexandra: Jonathan, how should companies go about designing the right physical space for corporate training?

Jonathan: In some ways, the key to creating corporate training spaces is the same as designing offices: flexibility. Just as employees have different work styles throughout their 9-to-5 day, new hires in corporate training have different learning styles. So recruiters have to design training spaces not only to enable the variety of tasks or lessons at hand, but to support the variety of learners they're training in a given session.

What physical design concepts best facilitate human learning and why?

Jonathan: I think it entirely depends on what the goals are within each learning session. That's why it's important to align a company's training goals with the physical learning environment. Designing a flexible training space is vital to facilitating human learning. For example, if one training task requires an individual assessment, new hires may need walled-in spaces or privacy screens to focus. But if another goal of the training program is to build relationships among teams that will soon work together, trainees may move to larger, shared work surfaces.

If an organization doesn't have a big budget for renovation, what tweaks can it make help improve its training spaces?

Jonathan: Training facilities are often overlooked within organizations, but an organization can make some effective changes without knocking down any walls. When space is at a premium, designing workspaces that can be reconfigured to accommodate various learning styles and types is paramount. Flexible furniture on casters can be reconfigured quickly. Mobile whiteboards can double as space dividers and learning surfaces to provide excellent teaming environments. A mix of high and low tables, along with several pieces of lounge furniture, can often be assembled to allow various types of group work.

For the rest of the interview, head over to the DeVry WORKS website.

Strategies for Excelling at Product Development

Product development is one of the most challenging aspects of running a business, because it’s a rare situation in which your offering is already so perfect you don’t need to improve or evolve with the market. You can vastly save a great deal of time and stress in your efforts to create new products and services, or expand on or enhance your existing ones, with five specific strategies.

Put Yourself in Your Customers’ Shoes

Product development is most successful when it is directly connected to an unmet customer need. “If you can create a smooth, flawless experience with no interference or frustrations, it’s likely that people will enjoy using your product. Solve a problem and make lives easier,” said Ali Mahvan, CEO of social shopping company Sharebert. “You're not starting a company to build a product for yourself. You're starting a company to build a product for your customers. Customer feedback has driven every major design and experience decision throughout the building of the Sharebert app and is our number one metric for design.”

 Iron Out a Process

Torrey Tayenaka, CEO of video production company Sparkhouse, wanted to create animated explainer videos to market customers’ businesses, products, and services. Explainer videos are useful because you can produce them without actors and cameras, and while a product is still in the concepting stage. However, the idea is a relatively new one, so Tayenaka needed to build a process that could be easily understood and followed by his team and customers alike. “We took our time in developing a 12-step animation process that we always strive to communicate clearly,” he said.

Take the Airplane Window View

To excel at product development, you must be willing to take a step back and look around you even as you have the urge to charge forward. “We are constantly looking at the big picture, asking ourselves: do we know what we are creating, who we are creating it for and why we are creating it?” said Tayenaka. “If we understand those key points, we can always make sure the ship is headed in the right direction. But on the other hand, if we get too excited about features and specifics, we can lose sight of what’s really important.”

For more where this came from, check out the full piece at the AMEX OpenForum.