Marcia' Leadership Q And As: Our Key Future of Work Challenges

Q: As we look forward, what are some of our most key challenges we face in our future work?

A. The biggest challenge in how we think about the future of work is not AI, automation, or remote policies. It is that management is often looking for the quick answers or quick fixes, especially when they are surrounded with uncertainty or disruption in the economy, supply chains, labor force, or geopolitical environment.

Rather than discuss “business as usual” agendas, meetings must pivot and address topics that may not be typical and not have easy answers. While leaders often want to focus future work around new technology, the most relevant issue will be to have conversations to address transforming leadership thinking to address the challenges in the next year and beyond.

Much work discussion focuses on tools such as AI platforms, digital workflows, skills, and productivity dashboards. These matter. But they won’t address the real disruption. The deeper challenge is systemic, and it always has been.

Work itself has changed. The knowledge and skills needed for the new work has changed. But the leadership thinking and the investment in staff development has not kept pace. There are gaps, and that’s where the risks lie. But they are often not seen or not addressed.

Outdated models are driving modern decisions

Work used to be controlled, standardized, and maximized as if stability exists. But todays’ work environments are defined by volatility, interdependence, and uncertainty. Linear thinking breaks down quickly. The goal is no longer alignment. If bureaucratic or command and control models are still implemented, complexity, waste and fear rapidly increase.

The problem is not resistance to change. It’s a reliance on beliefs that no longer reflect reality.

Technology automates broken systems

For decades, some leaders pushed to automate. The goal was more technology and data, and now AI. Speed was the goal. However, the goals and strategies are not clear and if systems are ineffective, making them more efficient just means that you’re accelerating broken systems and making garbage faster.

Automation and AI don’t fix dysfunctions. They expose them.

There is a mismatch between flawed processes and powerful technology. Inefficiency accelerates. Bias scales. More data charts are generated. Teams are overwhelmed. Poor decisions happen faster. Clarity is lost, and the methods to achieve any goals become murky.

The drive to implement AI is like the gold rush. Is there any infrastructure in place? Or do organizations implode in chaos? Overlooked are the strategic questions about the purpose for pursuing a product or service, and is there a market? Does a system exist, and should it be automated? Without systems thinking, technology simply magnifies existing weaknesses. Because people work IN the system, they are blind to see different perspectives.

What is value for your customer

Customers don’t want compliance or efficient but poor quality. They want products and services that are based on listening and understanding their needs. Customers want vendors who can adapt to their needs.

Unfortunately, organizations have set up their systems to reward and offer incentives to promote the hierarchy, internal competition, and short-term metrics. Tension builds and performance and employee engagement wanes.

What Leadership Capability Is Needed

For the future of work, leaders are needed who can navigate uncertainty, make decisions with incomplete data, and operate with non-linearity (think across the organization and break down the silos.)

The constraints have been a lack of talent, skills, labor shortages, or technology. But now it is a lack of leadership. Leaders need to build a system, hire and develop more leaders, and invest in the people to achieve the aim of the system that will deliver quality to the customers.

Better Judgment, Better Control

The quality of the questions, the answers, and the decisions will expose the strengths and weaknesses of leaders and their organizations. Organizations now must be investing rapidly in accelerating their knowledge about making high-quality decisions, ethical reasoning, systems design, and cross-functional collaboration for effective results.

The Current Future of Work Question

While many businesses are asking, “How do we use AI?” that question needs to be set aside. The real question is, “What kind of leadership do we need to develop, and are we willing to transform ourselves (with guidance from an advisor) to meet the need?

Until leaders’ thinking evolves and understands the profound knowledge needed to lead for the future of work, no amount of technology will deliver sustainable results. AI will become a technology sub-optimized and become another tool that people use to tinker. The future of work will not be determined by tools. Will leaders transform their thinking to re-assess how work works in the future?

Send your questions to strategic advisor, facilitator, and speaker Marcia Daszko at md@mdaszko.com. Check out her provocative bestselling book “Pivot Disrupt Transform: How Leaders Beat the Odds and Survive.” See mdaszko.com and take your free leadership self-assessment.