Ways of Working Nudge

The current state for many organisations is functional role-based silos with work passing, like a relay race. This is how we have worked, at scale, since 1771 with the introduction of the first Industrial Revolution. The context has been repetitive, knowable, physical work, with narrow division of labour matching the physical product (e.g. cotton to cloth, iron ore to steel to railroads, steel to automobiles).

In the Age of Digital, where work is mostly unique, unknowable, knowledge work, this does not optimise for outcomes.

People are incentivised in role-based silos ('the boat is sinking, but not my problem as the hole is on your side!'), work is thrown over the wall as quickly as possible, stacking up in a waiting state for 90% of the end to end time, people are a cog in the machine, it is feast to famine, most people are not close to the consumer, it is an inhumane, demoralising way to work. It does not optimise for better value, sooner, safer and happier. Throw in a dose of fear, an absence of psychological safety, a focus on 'deadlines' in plan put together at the point of having learnt the least and you'd be hard pressed to sub-optimise more.

Instead, to optimise for quality, value, time to value, not making newspaper headlines, engagement and satisfaction, in the context of unique, unknowable work, it helps to have long-lived multidisciplinary teams, aligned to long-lived products (value) and long-lived consumers. Move up and down the pitch together. Rugby over a relay race.

LinkedIn post here, Bluesky here

Regards, Jon