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The Search For Wholeness: What Can We Learn From World Economic Forum Discussions?

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Last week in Davos, Switzerland, the annual meeting for The World Economic Forum (WEF) was held on the theme, ‘Cooperation in a Fragmented World.’

The meeting which intends to provide a platform to engage in constructive, forward-looking dialogues and to facilitate public-private cooperation, hosted more than ~50 heads of state and ~60 finance ministers, several trade and foreign ministers.

The opening message was clear and concise accompanying a special message from Ukranian First Lady Olena Zelenska that we are living in an interconnected world and we must actively seek and enable better cooperation in lieu of current fragmentation and in reach of more life giving design.

We have been writing and talking about three main drivers of change in the new world order and how they have been affecting the future of work and workplace experience: Globalization, digitalization, and democratization.

The WEF agenda could also be summarized to touch each one of these change drivers though without always offering solutions, rather pointing out some valuable facts and arguments.

1. Globalization: It is no doubt our economies have become vastly connected through global flows of manufacturing chains (goods, services, capital, etc.) as well as exchange of talent, data, and ideas over years. It is also true that these multi-geo value chains has enabled a more prosperous world for the consumer while creating several risks, turbulences and disturbances for the market as well as the environment. As a result, the kickoff panel on the second day, featuring economic historian Adam Tooze focused on the concept of “de-globalization or re-globalization.” No valid conclusions were presented, rather a few clear facts calling individuals and the collective to action:

  • no region is self-sufficient while half of trade is concentrated effecting efficiency gains,
  • the pace of change and lack of diversity in resources are exhausting the habitat (including human resources),
  • governments are too heavy and corrupt to reimagine a new global trade/ operating model,
  • stabilization is required to reach the necessary levels of resilience within organizations.

2. Digitalization: Like the impacts of globalization, digitalization and technological advancements seem to have created shared prosperity and smart solutions to some of humanity’s most common challenges while at the same time, they have come to overwhelm individuals and organizations, adding to disarray, rising polarization and even to climate crisis. A lot was presented around the need to better calculate positive and negative potential impacts of future technological advancements. There was also good amount of encouragement towards big tech firms to invest further and to drive higher collaboration towards positive use of big data and creation of generative AI. For a full-time organizational practitioner as me, some of the best points were made by Amy Webb, the CEO of Future Today Institute:

  • technology advancement is a maturing process (and mirrors human evolution),
  • organizations first need to hammer down basic adoption,
  • we need to rethink technology as a tool for commercialization if we are serious about an eco-system shift,
  • we are still far from the kind of breakthrough that can allow businesses to experience greater agility by standardizing operations on a common platform and enabling innovation.

3. Democratization: This was probably one of the most interesting and passionately debated topics and the theme was divided into several interest areas including but not limited to social morality, diversity, inclusion and gender equality. There were arguments around whether democracy is under attack and how we have taken it for granted in the developed economies (research from MIT’s Acemoglu studies support the connection between economic development and advancement of economies.)

Whether democracy is under attack or we have been (un)able to create an equitable shared space for one another, there seems a loosened embrace of humanitarian values impacting society and a genuine search for a renewed agreement and better safeguard of that common baseline. Further, the lack of understanding in history and more importantly, the literature and the philosophy across many aspects of life seems to be weakening our collective ability to reimagine different possibilities and life-generating outcomes. For that, it is worth celebrating diversity of attendants this year.

So, what can we learn from these developments around the impact to work and workplace experience?

It is no secret that especially following the pandemic, most Fortune 500 companies have started working on “transforming” their operating models. Many have been actively adopting new strategies to drive growth. Some reverted to semi-modern workplace practices such as hybrid work. Accenture calls this movement the “Total Enterprise Reinvention.” Yet, the current context requires so much more than simply transforming a business model or allowing people to work from home half time. It seems we need to rethink experience end to end and HR has a great opportunity to lead the way. By looking at data from Future of Jobs report, 2020, there is valuable insights to be considered:

  • All refined or redefined business models need to become life-giving not life-taking to drive sustainability,
  • Industries are reshaping, current sectors are changing and new job categories are being reinvented,
  • ‘Human Resources’ as a domain is evolving into ‘People and Culture’ and requiring specific insight,
  • The kind of talent businesses need is unforeseen and the kind of skills no one is familiar with,
  • Learning is insufficient at an individual level and needs to become more systematic,
  • The kind of leadership – sometimes referred to as ‘transformational leadership’ requires more transcendence meaning less a transactional behavior exchange, rather a shift in mindset and emotional capacity to drive differentiated climate experience, etc.

The multitude of ongoing shifts in and beyond the workplace calls for bold collective action. Until there is unified courage and systemic cooperation across geographies, industries and sectors, we need to continue investing in our individual self-leadership capabilities exploring and allowing our true human side to flourish. When it seems impossible to recompose world’s fragmented pieces into a harmonious whole, we may find an invitation to embrace one secret ingredient today and now – space.

Our current world of work is obsessed with inquiring space despite the paradoxes present. Life valued by material earning even though it doesn’t guarantee happiness. Expansion in resources even though it doesn’t guarantee profit. 24/7 reach even though it doesn’t guarantee quality in connection. Busyness in time even though it doesn’t guarantee quality outcome.

The need to constantly master space across multiple boundaries in return limits our capacity for beauty, calibration and foresight. It is ironic that in hopes to achieve anew, we find ourselves becoming the very “thing” the current system is designed to provide for: distracted, disrupted and sadly, disjointed. Or was put in Davos: fragmented.

The truth is we can’t lead others, where we have not been ourselves. If we are serious about rethinking a new way to cooperation, we need to grow brave enough to step into an unknown space and take the distance we need to breathe, focus and reconnect with self before we meet each other. And if we did, perhaps we wouldn’t find ourselves facing a whole industry exercising reductions in force and saying “they didn’t see it coming.” Because, guess what? Of all things listed, it is space that expands our horizon best.

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