What is the main message of How the Future Works?

The main message of How the Future Works is to understand the forces shaping the future and adapt to thrive in an ever-changing world.

Who is the author of How the Future Works?

The authors of How the Future Works are Brian Elliott, Sheela Subramanian, and Helen Kupp.

Management & Leadership

How the Future Works Book Summary - How the Future Works Book explained in key points

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How the Future Works summary

Name: How the Future Works
Rating: 4 (133 reviews)
Author: Brian Elliott, Sheela Subramanian, Helen Kupp

Brian Elliott Sheela Subramanian Helen Kupp

Leading Flexible Teams To Do The Best Work of Their Lives

4 (133 ratings)

19 mins

Brief summary

How the Future Works by Brian Elliott, Sheela Subramanian, Helen Kupp explores how technology and innovation are shaping our future. This book offers insights into the fast-evolving world of technology and the impact it will have on society.

Topics

New Work Work Culture Leadership Working from Home Strategy

Table of Contents

How the Future Works
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Maximize the benefits of flexible work policies by learning to implement them effectively.

COVID-19 revolutionized many organizations by forcing employees to work from home. And much to everyone‘s surprise, productivity improved, challenging old beliefs about what employees need to thrive.

Now that it’s safe to return to the workplace, many organizations want to make flexible work strategies permanent. But how do leaders do so effectively and transition their former systems to this new operating style to reap its benefits?

In this Blink, you’ll learn a seven-step framework to implement a flexible work strategy in your organization, giving your employees choice about when and how they work. This doesn’t mean they‘ll have total freedom or no accountability. It means striking a balance between autonomy and company guidelines in a way that optimizes individual performance by making space for personal and professional needs.

So, let’s discover how you can carry your organization into the new era.

Step 1: Identify principles that will guide your flexible work strategy

In June 2021, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced a new company policy. It required employees to work from the office on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, giving them the option to work from home the other two days. The backlash was swift – many valued and talented employees resigned immediately.

It was quickly clear that Cook had made a fundamental error. He’d believed that flexible work meant letting employees work from home on days of his choosing. But coming into the office on those days wasn’t going to work for many individuals. They wanted choice about when they were on-site and were prepared to find employment elsewhere if Apple didn’t offer it.

Effective flexible work strategies aren’t underpinned by a one-size-fits-all policy that comes from the top down. This is especially true for complex, global companies whose employees perform diverse roles. So if a series of rules like Cook’s doesn’t determine flexible work practices, what does?

The answer is a series of principles.

To effectively implement a flexible work strategy, you and your fellow leaders need to identify why you’re introducing this new policy. Is it to attract or retain talent, become more agile, shift from a physical to a digital HQ? Your why will create an objective which will form the basis of your core principles.

Once you’re clear on your why, you can formulate three-to-five principles that evoke a sense of what your new work model will look like. These principles shouldn’t contain tactical targets, like minimum on-site hours. Instead, they should identify the mindset that leaders and management need to adopt to support this organization-wide change.

For instance, the Royal Bank of Canada’s set of principles includes a statement that proximity is still important. This identifies that the bank values bringing all employees together regularly. But, by not stipulating how regular – as Cook did – managers have the scope to negotiate this with their teams in a way that supports individual and team outputs.

Step 2: Establish guardrails to create behavioral expectations

Imagine you’re an executive calling into a meeting remotely, only to find that all the senior executives appear on one screen from the board room at HQ. This signals that you should really be on-site, even if your company’s flexible work policy says otherwise. It’s behaviors like these that sabotage messaging about equality in a flexible work model.

If you want to implement a flexible work policy effectively, it’s crucial that there are clear expectations about behavior – including that of your senior executives. These expectations act as guardrails that help everyone live the principles you’ve established in Step 1. Guardrails ensure your new policy is executed meaningfully. Remember, there’s a reason you’ve introduced this policy – the why you identified earlier.

Step 3: Ask each team to develop a work practices plan

When a CEO dictates how flexible work plans operate – like Tim Cook did at Apple – they assume that everyone in their company has identical needs and that their work practices can be optimized uniformly. But we all know this isn’t the case.

The needs of a sales team are wildly different from those of an engineering department. And that doesn’t even account for differences in personality. An introvert might need a quiet, private space to do their best work, while an extrovert might excel in a more dynamic environment. And then there are the needs that belong to our personal lives – caring for others, maintaining our fitness and health, and pursuing our hobbies feed our vibrancy and social connections. All these elements mean a blanket policy will never work.

Step 4: Normalize continuous learning

While most of us spent the better part of the pandemic working from home, making flexible work the norm is still new terrain – and one that has many executives nervous.

It’s important to remember that – like anything new – we all need to keep an open mind and experiment with how our new workplaces operate until we can determine best practices for our specific organization.

Step 5: Make meaningful digital connection possible

No matter who you are or what you do, connection is a fundamental human need we all share – one that serves an evolutionary purpose to keep our species alive and functioning.

Many executives have concerns that flexible work models will erode an employee’s sense of connection and that innovation and collaboration will suffer as a result. But this begs the question: When it comes to creating connection, is meeting in person crucial?

Step 6: Upskill your managers for your new workplace

Prior to the pandemic, managers mainly served as “gatekeepers,” ensuring that their teams delivered on targets and monitoring productivity using metrics like hours spent at the desk. But this approach to management isn’t possible in a flexible work environment because micromanaging and in-person supervision aren’t possible.

This means that the role of managers needs an overhaul so that it still has value in a flexible workplace. The manager must leave their gatekeeping days behind and become an empathetic coach.

Step 7: Change how you evaluate success

Transitioning your managers from gatekeepers to empathetic coaches causes another need for change: the metrics you use to measure success. If you’re no longer using hours logged or physical presence in the office as a way of evaluating performance, how will you know that your employees are actually being productive and not watching TV or cat memes?

Take a moment here to think back to your company’s most recent annual report. In the “achievements” section, did you celebrate the collective number of hours everyone worked or did you highlight outcomes – like a new product being launched or a research breakthrough? So, if we’re using company outputs to evaluate organizational success, why aren’t we doing the same with our employees?

Final Summary

Successfully transitioning to flexible work practices requires planning, change management, and a shift in mindset.

Adopting a flexible work strategy isn’t just something that helps employees achieve a healthier work-life balance; it can help your company thrive by attracting talent, increasing productivity, and unlocking potential.

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What is How the Future Works about?

How the Future Works (2022) provides a blueprint that company leaders can use to implement flexible work policies. It offers a step-by-step guide detailing how to manage this transition effectively so that organizations can benefit from this new way of working.

How the Future Works Review

How the Future Works (2021) explores the fascinating world of technology and its impact on our lives. Here's why this book is definitely worth reading:

Featuring in-depth analysis and research, it provides valuable insights into the future of technology and how it will shape our world.
With interviews and case studies, the book offers real-life examples that demonstrate the practical applications and potential of emerging technologies.
Its accessible writing style and engaging storytelling make complex concepts easy to understand, ensuring that readers stay engaged and never find the topic boring.

Who should read How the Future Works?

Leaders wanting to make flexible work strategies the norm
Executives who are skeptical about flexible working models
Managers who want their teams to transition successfully to flexible work arrangements

About the Author

Brian Elliot is the executive leader and senior vice president of Slack’s consortium, Future Forum. Before working at Slack, Elliott spent 30 years leading teams and building companies as a startup CEO and product leader at Google.

Sheela Subramanian became vice president of Future Forum after working as Slack’s head of global enterprise marketing. She previously cofounded Google’s Global market development team, as well as several startups.

Helen Kupp is Future Forum’s senior director of product strategy and partnerships. After holding product and BizOp roles at Thumbtack and Bloomreach, she led Slack’s strategy and analytics team.

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Management & Leadership Corporate Culture

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