The new world of work - fully alive human beings, doing personally meaningful work that is valuable for others, supported by technology

As I highlighted in the post Could 'The Great Resignation' actually be the great shift in why and how we work? the keys to making the shift to the new world of work are three-fold

1) being and becoming the most remarkable human beings we can be.

2) doing work that is meaningful for us and highly valuable for others.

3) ensuring technology is adding value to the human experience.

Remarkable Human Beings Are Those Who Are Fully Alive

We are all one-of-a-kind human beings.

As many have observed we have become human doings.

The five faces of a human being fully alive

At this post there's insights into the five faces and a link to a short podcast. Here's the direct link to the podcast. The video below summarises the five.

Workplaces that do not enable people to be fully alive human beings face a precarious future.

Doing work that is meaningful for us and highly valuable for others

The key to doing meaningful for you work is to "follow your bliss."

In my book Heart-Leadership I say "The very best explanation that I have ever come across for “follow your bliss” comes from the film ‘Finding Joe’ which is a documentary about Joseph Campbell’s work. 

In the film the President of the Joseph Campbell Foundation describes bliss as “doing what you can’t not do.” I love this!

Joseph Campbell is one of my heroes.

What is it that you can't not do?

According to Joseph Campbell its “identifying that pursuit which you are truly passionate about and attempting to give yourself absolutely to it.

In so doing, you will find your fullest potential and serve your community to the greatest possible extent.”

In my Heart-Leadership book I recommend many ways to discover your bliss which can also be called nature, voice, essence, quiddity, ikigai, element, vitality, love, gift, music, passion.

One of these recommendations is creating a one-page visual called a Career and Life-Calling Card where you would feature your answers the following questions:

Can Do

What do I know?

What are my key skills?

What is my real expertise?

How do I practice what I know?

Will do

What is my attitude to living?

What am I really committed to?

How can I be more disciplined in taking action?

How I am really different from others who do what I do?

Love to do

My purpose in life is?

I am passionate about?

I find Joy in?

My art is?

My essence is?

People who love what I do

How do I:

Serve others?

Help people achieve what is important to them?

Solve people’s problems?

Offer solutions to people’s challenges?

Exchange value with other people?

Deliver value to other people?

The Career and Life-Calling Card is a checklist. More about its development (and bliss) in this post and podcast.

What is it that you can't not do?

To make a difference doing work that is meaningful for you must also be valuable for others

Five factors to consider about providing value to others

1) In your role clarity statement are the people your role has relationships with listed and the value expected by them overviewed?

2) Are you engaged in regular after-action-reviews with these people, both formally and informally, so that you are engaging in ongoing conversation about your value exchange and delivery?

3) Do the value behaviours of your organisation (not the words, the behaviours) support you in doing work that is meaningful for you and highly valuable for others?

4) Do your processes (this includes policies, procedures, practices, systems and structures) mean that meaningful for you/valuable for others work is simple to do?

5) Is the organisation you work for profit-driven or human or society driven? The future is not about profit-driven organisations.

Ensuring technology is adding value to the human experience

The book 'Technology vs. Humanity The coming clash between man and machine' by Gerd Leonhard makes my top 21 recommended reading list. Read my full thoughts about the book here. Three aspects that I love in particular are:

1) The idea of exponential humanism "the philosophy to find a way forward that will allow us to embrace technology but not become technology, to use it as a tool not as purpose."

2) The concept of "key human indicators" as a far better way forward than the traditional and tired KPI's.

3) The insight of androrithms "those qualities that makes us human" having more meaning than algorithms.

For me personally I am not at all interested in technology that doesn't enhance the human experience. A lot of technology actually hinders the human experience like machines that answer the phone for example!

There's no doubt that many advances in technology add value to our lives, indeed help our well-being. We get to decide not the makers of technology. I closed my Facebook account recently because I will not be the product.

What is your stance? A human front and centre in your organisation or is technology dictating?

The new world of work for me is all about fully alive human beings, doing personally meaningful work that is valuable for others, supported by technology.

Who will you become?

What will you do next?

Kind regards

Ian