The new world of work

In conversation with clients, we often examine what needs to change to ensure leadership effectiveness and business performance in an ever changing environment.


We have to make way for new ways of leading and working fit for today and the future, we cannot build the future on the patterns and expectations of the past.


We are experiencing information overload. Help your people prioritise the stream of information. Help them to focus on what really matters to help you achieve your strategy.


Here are some of the things clients work on changing:

  • Focus on the art of the possible – seize opportunities to co-create, explore the strange and diverse, experiment

  • Accept that we cannot plan for everything, let things emerge from the experiments, evaluate their success and choose to fail fast if it does not work

  • Allow learning from failure, celebrate the successes and the failures

  • Work and life have become much more integrated, the lines between the two more blurred. Technology has given us access to data and ways of working that we could only dream of 10 years ago. We expect people to be “always on”. We expect people to take their work home. Do we accept they will bring parts of home to work in return? Have we adjusted the policies and practices at work to allow for these blurred lines? Personally, I prefer to think about work-life integration, rather than balance

  • Adjust reward systems to reward the much more complex and conceptual world. Traditional linear reward systems (if I reach my target, I get X bonus) is only motivational for simple linear tasks. If tasks call for complex cognitive skills, linear reward actually leads to poorer performance, and is outdated in the 21st century. What is the blend of individual and team reward that will motivate the right behaviour and achievement suited to the task?

  • Work hard on building trust as a Leader

    • Develop yourself and others to build competence (mastery)

    • Create high performing teams to develop and deliver a shared vision (purpose)

    • Actively communicate, trust build and relationships with internal and external stakeholders

    • Lead and motivate change to support business and personal growth (autonomy)

    • Balance humility with self-confidence. Admit when you get it wrong


"You can’t lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse."

John Peers, American Businessman