Leadership and engagement

Knowledge workers

Around ten years ago, we started to hear phrases such as ‘knowledge economy’ and ‘knowledge workers’ and with these two ideas, ‘talent management’. Just how much of these ideas are present and how much is fabricated by market researchers and academics? Furthermore, as a CEO, to what extent do they matter to you and your organisation?

The extent to which knowledge workers and talent management are relevant to CEOs today depends greatly on a number of factors such as industry life-cycle and labour market conditions. However, underlying these ideas are two key factors: The extent to which workers’ know-how is unique to your organisation and the changing expectations that different generations bring with them to the workplace.

Know-how

We have been fortunate to have worked in both manufacturing and service industries. While some businesses might appear to have greater sector or organisational-specific know-how, we notice that most organisations have their particular way of running their businesses. Hence, over time, workers not only develop specific knowledge and skills in relation to their jobs, they also develop a way of bundling and applying their knowledge and skills in specific ways that is relevant to the unique demands of the tasks and the organisational culture. Increasingly, those in greatest demand are people who can adapt easily, learn quickly and crucially, people who can reconfigure their know-how in ways that are relevant to new situations. These workers are often the most mobile and the ones most employers want to retain because the cost of replacement is far greater than pure recruitment costs. Given the recent economic crises, we believe that the lull in worker’s mobility is temporary. In fact, even during the recent slow-down, we have seen movement in top talent despite the threat of redundancies and a climate of cost-reduction.

Generational differences

Whilst some people would call generational differences a fad, researches over the last few years have established changing patterns of behaviour and changing expectations as workforce profiles start to shift. In the last ten or so years, we have seen young people taking senior leadership roles- Google and Facebook are the most obvious. We personally knew of a similar 20 something CEO who, by the age of 27, had already handled two company buy-outs. Though these are exceptions, we are nevertheless sensing a bolder and more aspirational cohort of people who are likely to be part of your workforce today:

‘A study in 2004 carried out by Common Purpose, an organisation that offers training for leaders and managers, found that those who were not getting satisfaction at work were hitting a 'quarter-life crisis'. Searching for Something concluded that employers had to accommodate young workers' wider ambitions or risk losing them by the age of 30.

“We see young people that are searching for some sort of meaning in life and if you can't align their values with the organisation they might leave,” said Julia Middleton, the group's chief executive. “I think life is cyclical - and there is a return to people searching for meaning and searching for values.”
(Anushka Asthana, The Observer, Sunday 25 May 2008)

These future leaders are currently likely to be in junior roles or are new recruits in your company. It is not difficult to see how younger generations or, generation Y- those born between 1980s and 2000s, have become more tuned into ‘meaning in life’. Afterall, this is the generation that will have to create new solutions for their own sustainability with climate change and other macro shifts that will profoundly impact mankind. Yet there is a twist: they have also grown accustomed to a life that has been shaped by consumerism. Part of their reality is a constant pull from two poles: The need to sustain and enhance an aspirational lifestyle and the need for meaningful work/ freedom/ self-expression and inclusion. With a foot in each camp, they are likely to expect their workplace to provide them with:

• monetary rewards and a benefits package that will help sustain their aspirational lifestyles while at the same time,
• a freedom of expression, collaborative working, greater autonomy and decision-making and
• trust that they will work out the ‘how’ when given the ‘what’.

The more capable they are, the more likely they are to demand that an employer is able to support them in pursuit of what they love to do and to make possible for them to make a real contribution.

Whilst those of us who belong to generation X- born between 1960s and 1980s who are in executive and senior leadership roles value similar things- autonomy, decision-making and learning- we were also brought up by parents who were more prepared to work hard, keep their heads down and sacrifice today for a better tomorrow. Some of us also remember deep recessions and redundancies, as well as restrictive regimes such as communism. These wider societal and social factors have, to a greater or lesser extent, shaped our relationship with work. We view work as a necessity and are more likely to sacrifice our family life for greater career progression. As a generation, we are usually the ones who have bought into a ‘deferred life plan'.

As a result, it can be mystifying and highly frustrating that we are not seeing the same behaviours from our younger workforce. Viewed from our perspective, this generation may appear to be difficult to manage yet they are potentially the most high performing- highly educated, highly informed, socially adjusted and well-rounded members of our workforce.

More leading less managing

If we are interested in getting the most out of our workforce, we need to understand that this is not a generation that wants to be managed, they are a generation that expects to be lead, inspired, enabled and supported. The influence of communism on our workforce in Poland is that those who lived through the regime in their formative years would value security more than those who were too young to remember. That said, they also yearn for development, ways to make a contribution and to enjoy their work. Our future generation of leaders is inviting us to move away from a highly controlled and controlling environment to one that is contact-based. That is, our ability to make contact with the other person’s needs and aspirations and to give space and support for them to marry their needs with that of the organisation’s requirements.

What are the implications for senior leaders?

The magnet
What is your leadership and organisational practices designed to support? Most organisation structures, processes, procedures and working practices are modelled on the machanised production environment during the industrial revolution. There is a need to take a good look at how your magnet can be redesigned to meet the needs of your workforce and your future generation of leaders.

Invite to create
To what extent are people invited to shape and co-create the future? We see the most enlightened and progressive companies are actively taking steps towards inviting people to step forward and be involved. They know that their people and their creativity is the DNA underlying their competitive advantage. The wisdom lives wherever work is done- not just in the boardroom.

The role of the leader
What is the role of the leader? In a more collaborative and innovative environment, the role of the leader is closer to a mentor and a coach than a boss. The greater aspect of a leader’s job is involved in supporting their people to progress, develop and do more of what they love more often.

Leadership development
Bearing in mind that the capability and capacity of your organisation to innovate and your ability to survive and thrive is largely dependent on your own capacity to allow the organisation to change and respond to both internal and external changing needs. The adaptive ability of the organisation is dependent on your openness to embrace the unknown and to know, from your own experience, that ‘chaos is the birth canal of transformation’. In allowing yourself to open up to new possibilties, you are afforded a different perspective. In knowing what is your TOV and to know what it means that what you do everyday is an expression of your TOV is the best preparation for you to be an engaging leader because you now know what will open the hearts and minds of your entire workforce.